


this is where it ends (and begins again)

by dealan



Series: push AU [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe- Superpowers, Family Drama, Friendship, Gen, Multi, Mystery, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:04:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 105,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4954477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dealan/pseuds/dealan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“One day, a girl is going to fall out of the sky. You need to help her, you understand? Help her and you help all of us."</i>
  <br/>
</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div><br/>In the distant future, people with psychic abilities are being hunted and experimented on by the government. Lexa, the leader of the Resistance, is desperate to find a way to win this war. The Blakes are trying to save their mother. Monty and Raven are just trying to live their lives in hiding.  And the key to everyone’s survival lies in a girl who will fall from the sky. (Push AU, Squad!Fic)
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fusion fic for Push and the 100. The romantic pairings will be featured, but this is very much so a Squad/Team fic with a comic book feel. This story will have rotating POVs and is basically about saving the world through the magic of superpowers and friendship. (But mostly that last one.) You have been warned. 
> 
> Warnings: Violence, character death, language, implied sexual situations
> 
> For more detailed spoiler warnings and standard disclaimers, please see [the FAQ post here](http://dealanexmachina.tumblr.com/post/130782585752/push-au-faq). Many thanks to my team of betas: isagrimorie, gigi2690, aeevee, lynnearlington, leigh57 and amelinazenitram. This fic would not be here without you. Also thanks to my friends in Skype club; I would not be here without you.
> 
> For those who have not seen the movie, here is a cheat sheet of what kinds of Psychics and powers you'll be seeing in the fic: [GLOSSARY OF POWERS](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6188335)

  


_FIVE YEARS AGO_

The squeaking of sneakers on linoleum is the first warning Lexa gets, long before Costia manages to sprint into the empty classroom. Her sentences trip together in a single breath as she enters.

“They’re coming! Lexa, run!”   

Lexa’s head snaps up from her book, fear gripping her heart when the words register. She stands, the heavy tome falling forgotten on the floor, and grasps Costia’s hand as she strides past, already halfway out the door by the time she flicks the wrist of her free hand to Call her bag to her. The book bag sails onto Lexa’s shoulder, and together, they break out into a run down the empty hallway.

“Which direction?” Lexa huffs, trying to quell the panic in her voice.

Costia points ahead to their left.  “The gym.”

“Us or them?”

“Them.”

Lexa nods and sets into motion a strategy of defense, already fully formed in her mind. She waves her arm through the air, first to the left, then to the right. Two tables fly forward from their spots on opposite sides of the end of the hallway and block the gym doors completely.

“That should buy us at least another minute,” she says, as they turn the corner. “Where now?”

Costia scans the hallway for a place to hide, before her eyes light on the broom closet. “There!” she calls and tugs Lexa into the tiny space, slamming the door behind them.

It’s a tight squeeze for the two of them. Even when she drops her bag to their feet to make more room, Lexa’s body is squished against Costia’s in the close, dark quarters. Their arms and legs tangle together in a jumble of limbs, and their faces are practically nose to nose for them to fit, so near that Lexa can count the freckles dusting Costia’s cheeks.

Lexa falls back on all her training, tries to slow her racing pulse, taking slow, quiet breaths. She bites her lip and stares up for composure, but then their knees bump together for a second. Her head dips. And when steady, brown eyes lock with hers, framed by a perfect mess of black ringlets, her heart skips another beat.

The metallic scratch of tables being pulled away and the clomping about of heavy footsteps on the other side of the wooden door break their stare.

“LEXA! COSTIA! WHERE ARE YOU?” a familiar, angry voice calls out.

Lexa stifles a laugh. Costia shushes her to be quiet. “You’re going to get us caught.”

“They’re around here somewhere, Anya,” a grave voice intones.

“THREE TIMES, Gustus!” Anya yells. “This is the third time she has skipped training this week! I swear when I get my hands on that girl…”

As the voices fade away, Lexa sags into Costia’s body in relief. Her head drops onto Costia’s shoulder, and Lexa lets it bob up and down in place when her girlfriend chuckles in response.

“Third time this week? I thought you only skipped twice.”

Lexa looks up and shrugs. “I didn’t feel the need. My Moves are just fine.”

Costia tilts her head, the corners of her mouth curving into a small smirk. Lexa tries not to blush at the unintended innuendo and clears her throat to explain.

“The training is tedious and repetitive. I already know defense, but Anya never lets me do attacks. I got bored.” 

“She’s going to kill you, you know.”

“Oh, did you See that in one of your visions?” she asks dryly.

Costia snorts. “No, but she’s Anya. It doesn’t take a Watcher to foresee lots of push-ups in your future.”

Lexa grins in response. “You know what else I see in my future?” she teases, tipping her head closer.

“Dork,” Costia answers, all warmth and affection as Lexa leans forward to capture her lips.

Lexa could spend days cataloguing all the different kisses they’ve shared, but these are her favorite: the soft and lazy kind, as if they’re just two regular teenagers in love with all the time in the world. The fact that they’re making out in a broom closet only adds to the appeal, frankly, and she hums her contentment into the kiss, her chest feeling like it could explode with the normalcy of it all.

There’s nothing in this world that Lexa has been more grateful for than the moment Costia entered her life. She remembers how she struggled to contain her joy when Anya first told Lexa she would be bringing someone to live with them. Finally, a true companion for the first time in a childhood defined by the drudgery of non-stop drills and lectures on military theory from her guardians. An equal at her side to reassure Lexa that even if she can’t be with the family she was born into, she isn’t alone in this fight.

But Costia is more than just that. Costia is the one who won’t let a day go by without a little laughter. Costia is the one who helps her take breaks and hide because, _‘You should know what an actual life feels like so you know what you’re fighting for, Lexa. Life should still be about_ living _.’_

Costia just makes everything normal, or what passes for it anyway, and Lexa’s heart expands at every reminder of it.

“I will never love anyone more than I love you,” Lexa declares against her mouth.

“Yes, you will,” Costia says with an all-knowing certainty.

Lexa pulls away, frowning. “I will not.”

Costia’s face is serene as she brushes an errant curl out of Lexa’s face and tucks it behind her ear. “I have Seen it.”

“You can only See glimpses of possibilities, because the future’s always changing,” she argues back. “ _You_  told me that.”

“I’ve Seen all the versions of your future.” Her voice lilts with an air of melancholy that Lexa hates whenever they talk about the future. “I know how I die.”

Lexa’s stomach twists at her words. She grits her teeth behind a close-mouthed scowl. The very thought of losing Costia makes her feel as though all the air has been sucked out of the room, but what she hates more is the calm acceptance her girlfriend speaks with while talking about her own death.

“Can you not say things like that?” she implores with a pained look.

“Everyone dies, Lexa,” she breezes. “Watchers just get to See all the different ways they can go.” Lexa gapes at her in horror, and Costia has the grace to look contrite. “Sorry. Just a little gallows humor. Didn’t mean to be so morbid.”

“You’re not going to die.”

Costia’s eyes soften with kindness. She speaks in gentle tones as if to ease the blow. “Ignoring the future doesn’t stop it from happening, love. We just have to focus the bits of happiness we find in the lifetime we’re given.”

But that isn’t good enough. Lexa clings to her stubborn refusal to accept that fate.

“I’ll just change the future then,” she insists.

“Good luck with that,  _Commander_.”

“Exactly. I am the Commander,” she proclaims with mock severity. “The prophesized  _Heda_ , leader of the Coalition of the Twelve Clans, reincarnated.  _I_  can do anything.”

She juts out her chin with all the defiance she can muster against the powers that be, and at that, Costia barks out a laugh. Lexa smiles, pleased with herself for having chased away all trace of sadness. 

The door they are leaning on falls open with an abrupt swing, and bright light blinds them as they stumble out of the closet.

“There you are,” Anya growls, yanking Lexa to her feet. “Do you know how long I have been looking for you two?”

“Sorry, Anya,” Costia mumbles.

Lexa rolls her eyes. “We were just having some fun.”

Angry eyes narrow, and Lexa finds her back pushed against the wall, Anya’s arm pinning her shoulders in place.

“This isn’t a game, Alexandria. You’re sixteen years old. You’re not a child anymore. You need to focus on your training.” Anya turns to Costia. “And you. I expected better from you.”

Lexa’s eyes flare, and she Shoves back, sending a small shockwave forward. Anya barely falls back from the force of it, which is more a statement of Anya’s strength than any weakness in Lexa’s push.

“Don’t bring her into this. This fight is between you and me.”

“Get it through your head, Lexa,” Anya snaps, flicking her forehead. “This fight involves all of us. How do you expect to lead our people when you won’t even lead by example? You are the future of our people. Start acting like it. Otherwise, we’re as good as dead.”

With a swift suddenness, Costia shudders next to them. The tell-tale sign of her spine stiffening serves as a poor warning for the oncoming vision that slams into her. It rips violently through her, enough to make Costia’s knees buckle. Only Anya’s honed reflexes from a decade of battle-weary experience save her from falling to the ground.

Any vision that can knock a Watcher off their feet can’t be a good one, but Lexa only has eyes for Costia and what it is costing her right now. The nightmares in the aftermath are always the worst. What she’s Seeing in her mind’s Eye, Lexa can only guess, as she supports Costia’s elbow with a white-knuckled grip. She tracks the movement of erratic, rapid patterns behind closed eyelids, the way Costia’s fingers clench and unclench under the soft plaid of Lexa’s shirt. Finally, she opens her eyes, and Lexa can breathe again. 

Anya fights to keep her voice calm, urgency warring with concern. “Costia, what did you See?”

“Guns,” she chokes out. “Soldiers… lockers… blood.” 

The tall, burly figure of Gustus bursts through the gym doors.

“Division,” is all he says, and this time, when the word sinks in, Lexa feels her entire stomach drop out.

“How did they find us?” She turns to Anya in panic. “Why isn’t your Shadow working?”

Anya and Gustus glance at each other over her head.                                       

“Watchers,” he replies, grim with a trepidation Lexa is unaccustomed to seeing on his face.

Anya’s look is more alarming; Lexa has seen Anya wear more shades of fury and frustration than humanly possible, but never once has she ever seen fear in Anya’s eyes. Until now.

“Run,” Anya commands.

Lexa reaches out for Costia’s hand, but Costia remains rooted in the ground, deaf to their words. She stares up at the school clock, then at the bulletin board of messages and valentines that sits below it.

“5:43 and construction paper hearts.” The words are so faint Lexa almost doesn’t hear them. “I can’t believe I missed it.”

Lexa wrestles out of Anya’s hold and rushes to Costia’s side, grabbing her by the arm. “Come on!”

“No!” Costia shouts, wrenching her hand away. The break in her voice hurts Lexa’s heart.

Then, for the first time since Lexa has known her, Costia starts to cry. It unspools her because Costia has always been the stronger one. She is the steady, stable rock from whom Lexa draws courage and strength in the face of fear, but now that foundation is cracking.

“I can't,” she cries.

“What? No!” Lexa says, bewildered. “You have to come with us.”

“They don’t know about you yet. They’re coming for me.” Costia wipes at her tears with the corner of her sleeve, then takes a ragged breath. Eyes glassy and wide, she locks her gaze with Anya and Gustus. “They’re coming for _me_ ,” she repeats.

Anya closes her eyes, as if in pain, and Gustus bows his head in response. In seconds, Lexa's face crumples with understanding.

“No.” She shakes her head in denial. “No, no, no, no, no, no.” Her voice rises with each refrain, edging on hysteria.

“Lexa.” Costia grabs her face with both hands and tilts her chin up, holding her gaze. “Lexa, please look at me.”

The command in her words and the smooth feel of Costia’s palms against her cheeks send an echo into Lexa’s memories and bring to mind the first time Lexa told her she loved her. She had retracted the statement immediately in a fluster and refused to meet her eyes, until Costia forced her to look up and admit the truth. It seems so long ago and yet not long enough. She isn't ready to let Costia go.

“Your fight isn't over,” she argues weakly, throat hoarse with emotion.

“Listen to me, please,” Costia begs. “It's very important that you remember this.”

Her voice is mute and her eyes sting from the fight to keep tears at bay, but finally, Lexa nods.

“One day, a girl is going to fall out of the sky. You need to help her, you understand? She might fight you on it and push back, but she’ll need your guidance and support. Help her and you help all of us. Got it? Promise me.”

Lexa nods again, and this time, she cannot stop the dam from breaking. “Cos,” she pleads with a watery warble.

“I’m sorry, my love. I thought we had more time.” Costia kisses her softly, stealing one last sweetness from her lips with fleeting brevity, and presses their foreheads together. “Save our people,  _Heda_ ,” she whispers, clutching at her shoulders. Then she pushes her away and shouts to Gustus, “Get her out of here!”

Lexa feels her body lift, flying backwards towards Gustus and away from Costia, as he Moves her and catches her in his arms. He hefts Lexa over his shoulder and carries her off, and all she can do is watch as Costia turns away, too far out of reach for Lexa to Pull her towards them. 

*~*~*

Lexa is sixteen when her world shatters, and she stops believing in fighting destiny.

Costia tried to warn her. She was foolish not to listen.

*~*~*

_There are special people in this world._

_We don’t ask to be special._

_We’re just born this way._

*~*~*

_It started in the Second Age, when life began on Earth again._

_After the bombs dropped, when it became clear that the planet was no longer livable, the wealthy and elite disagreed on how to preserve the human race. They split into two groups: one took the skies, shooting rockets into space; the other built bunkers and buried themselves deep beneath the mountains._

_But there was just enough space for only so many. The rest were left to die on the ground._

_Except that's thing; some people refused to die._

_Nobody knows how or why it happened. Evolution is a tricky thing. It requires us to adapt, change. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or whatever cliché you want to explain it, but only the strong survive._

_So when the Earth was deemed livable again, instead of two groups, there were three factions of the human race who had to put aside their differences and start again. The Mountain Men, Grounders, and Sky People learned how to live together. Mankind began to thrive, rebuild cities, develop technologies._

_Then some of us began to change again._

*~*~*

_Today, Psychics pass Normals by in the street all the time._

_Some are called “Movers,” just an easy way of saying “telekinetic.”_

_Others are called “Watchers.” They can See the future, even if that's not always as simple as it sounds._

_“Sniffs” are the opposite. They hold an object and See visions of the past: everyone who’s touched it, everywhere it’s been._

_“Pushers” put thoughts in your head and make whatever lie they come up with the truth._

_“Shifters.” “Shadows.” “Stitches.” “Bleeders.” It goes on and on._

_From what the scientists can tell, those of us with Psychic abilities have the highest probability of being descendants of the survivors on the ground and the people who went into space. Something about the solar radiation and genetic enhancements in the Sky People’s DNA mixing with the primordial soup that allowed the Grounders to survive the bombs. All of which resulted in a higher evolution of man._

_The government didn’t know what to make of it, so they locked us up at first, experimented on us. They even tried to turn us into weapons. Make us into the monsters they feared we might already be._

_We started another war over it and won the freedom to live among the rest of society, but that doesn’t mean we’re at peace. That’s just a lie they feed us. Officially the fighting ended; the experiments on our people have not._

_Right now there are sites all over the world, organizations called “Divisions.” The biggest one is in Polis, on a base called Mt. Weather. Their goal is to control and exploit what nature and evolution has made._

_They test us, separate us, say it’s all for our own good to help Normals work together with Psychics. (Another lie.) The experiments are supposed to be voluntary; only the government makes it impossible to get a job, build a home, live an actual life unless someone in your family offers themselves up to be a lab rat. Sometimes they don’t even pretend with the poorest and most disenfranchised among us. They just snatch us off the streets._

_They even use our own people against us. Division Psychics and Normal agents alike are trained to track and hunt us down like animals, take us away from our families and friends. Special abilities or not, no one is safe._

*~*~*

_My name is Clarke Griffin, and I am a Watcher._

_So far, the future I See really,_ really _sucks._

_Luckily, the future is constantly changing, in the largest of ways, by the smallest of things. The Mt. Weather Division has been winning a lot of battles. But there is a Resistance building. We're starting to fight back. Blood will have blood, at whatever the cost._

_It’s time to end this war._


	2. Act I: That Fight or Flight Response (1/2)

 

 

 

 

_TODAY_

“O, wake up,” Bellamy bellows. “You’re going to be late.”

“Go. Away,” a voice grumbles from underneath the small pile of pillows and blankets on the bed.

Bellamy crosses his arms in front of his chest and frowns at the cocooned figure snuggling deeper under the covers.

It isn't that he is terribly possessive about the bed. He sleeps on the couch more often than not, but sometimes they share when work is particularly exhausting and he needs to give his back a rest. It's a comfortable mattress, one of the things he indulged in when furnishing their apartment. He doesn't blame her for wanting to stay in it.

Still, that's no excuse.

Bellamy tugs down the blanket and reveals the grumpy face of his little sister. “C'mon, Octavia, get up. You have to get going or you’ll miss your class.”

“College is dumb,” she whines, draping an arm over her eyes, still half asleep. “What’s the point of going when no one even knows that I'm there?”

“You'll know you're there. You still need an education,” he reminds her. “And I need to get to work. I promised Mom—”

“Yeah, yeah. Your sister, your responsibility,” she mumbles into her pillow. She flops onto her stomach and yanks the blanket back over her shoulder. “It’s still my life, Bells.”

“Octavia, I'm warning you…”

He sighs at her lack of response and waves his fingers, Floating a glass over her unsuspecting head. It wobbles a little in the air as he waits ten more seconds. Then he flicks his wrist, Dumping cold ice water all over her.

Octavia screams and shoots up in the bed. “WHAT THE HELL, BELL?!”

“I warned you,” he answers, calm in the face of her wrath.

“I don't even have class today!” she shouts back, gesticulating wildly, droplets flying with every swing of her arms. “Everything's cancelled for Unity Day!”

Right. Unity Day.

Bellamy’s face scrunches at its mention, and he rubs the side of his neck. Octavia gets up and stomps past him, stepping on his foot, hard, with purpose. He yelps more in surprise than pain as she storms out of the bedroom.

“I'm sorry, O. I forgot you have the day off.” He chases after her out of the room, but when he enters the open living space of their apartment, she’s nowhere to be seen.

“Octavia, come out,” he calls into the empty room. _It's not like the apartment is big enough for her to go anywhere, and he hasn’t heard the front door slam_ , he reasons. “C’mon, I said I’m sorry.”

He stands with his hands on his hips, head hanging in apology, waiting for her to appear. He hates it when she does this. Then an idea pops in his mind.

“You can't blame me for forgetting,” he complains with an exaggerated sigh. “Unity Day is a stupid holiday where they pretend that our ancestors held hands and sang songs together in peace, when we all know they couldn't stand each other and spent the first ten years trying to kill each other again.”

He pauses for a moment to see if she will take the bait before barreling on.

“And you know the government invented it, just so it can paint a pretty picture of equality, so Normals can gloss over all the injustices that they continue to perpetuate against people like us and reinforce a broken system that—”

“Okay, stop, stop,” she protests, shimmering into focus in front of him. “God, you're such a nerd.”

Bellamy tries but fails to keep the smugness out of his smirk.  _Gets her every time._

“You're making me pancakes,” she grouses, poking him hard in the chest.

“Done,” he agrees quickly.

"With chocolate chips and whipped cream,” she adds for good measure.

“Absolutely,” he nods.

Octavia plops down on couch with a sigh and flips on the tiny TV that sits in the corner. She grabs his hoodie from the table and slips it on, burrowing into its soft warmth. It fits slightly big on her, and Bellamy smiles at the way the sweatshirt dwarfs her frame and the sleeves hang past her hands. If he squints hard enough, she looks just like she did when she was a kid, stealing his clothes to dress up like a knight while he carried her on his back as her valiant steed.

“Better get cracking on those eggs,” she calls over her shoulder, eyes glued to the TV. “Don't want to be late for work.”

Bellamy shakes his head but grins and reaches to open the fridge.

Little sisters are such a pain in the ass.

*~*~*

_*Beep*_

_*Beep*_

_*Beep*_

Eyes still closed, Clarke reaches over to slam the snooze button on her alarm, only to hit an empty table hard where her clock should be.

The pain jolts her awake, and when her eyes snap open, she realizes with a start that she is not, in fact, on her comfortable bed at home. Instead she’s in a hospital room, the rhythmic beating of the machine next to her rising in tempo as she becomes aware of her situation. A million thoughts cut through the fogginess in her head, bringing the world into sharp clarity.

She runs her hands over her body in quick strokes, checking her legs, arms, ribs, neck and face until she hisses in pain when she touches her temple. The plaster edges of a butterfly bandage on her forehead rub against her fingers, raising her concern. She tries to think when she could have sustained this injury, but everything comes up a blank.

It had to have been bad if her father risked bringing her into a hospital. It’s hard enough to find hospitals that take people like them in. These days, they’ve had to depend on the pity from her mom’s former colleagues.  _Dad must have really cashed in a big favor for this one._

Even so, unfamiliar hospitals make her wary. A small spike of paranoia runs through her without her father’s presence in the room.

Groggy with vertigo, she stands up and manages to remove the IV safely from her arm only through years of careful practice. The beeping noise turns into a steady wail when she unhooks herself from the heart monitor, and Clarke winces at the sound. She hurries as fast as she can, tries to wake her body up and get it to cooperate. It’s only a matter of time before someone finds her, but her movements are perplexingly sluggish. She’s only halfway to her belongings when a harried nurse comes running through the door.

“You’re awake,” she says, dumb with surprise.

Clarke freezes at the sight of the syringe the nurse carries. Years’ worth of warnings from her parents ring in her mind: ‘ _Never let strangers take your blood or they will know you have abilities.’_

Panicked, Clarke tries to make a break for it, but her foot hits the bed as she rounds it. The nurse catches her with no difficulty at all, tossing the syringe aside.

“Easy there.”

Her gentle words have the opposite effect on Clarke and only spur her into action. She tries to fight back, throwing elbows and fists where she can, but her head swims and her body won’t respond. The nurse overpowers her with barely any effort.

“You’re not supposed to be up,” she tuts. “Let’s get you back in bed.”

Clarke has no choice but to be helped back onto the mattress. She watches with wary eyes as the nurse picks up her chart and looks through it, as if checking something. Instead of reaching for the syringe, though, the nurse goes to fill a cup of water and offers it with a kind smile.

It feels like a trap.

However, her mouth is painfully dry, like she hasn’t used it days, so Clarke accepts the water with reluctance. She’s grateful when the cool liquid soothes her throat.

“Better?” the nurse asks.

 _Where is my dad?_  Clarke almost responds, then thinks better of it. She nods her assent instead.

“Do you know your name?”

Clarke shakes her head silently, unwilling to give anything up. _Play dumb. They get nothing until Dad arrives._

“Well, I’m Sienna.” She eyes the bandage on Clarke’s forehead and whistles. “Looks like you took quite the tumble.”

“Is that why my head so fuzzy?” Clarke croaks out, touching her temple gingerly.

The nurse tsks in disapproval and swats her hand away. “They gave you a sedative to calm you down, which probably why your headaches are worse. You’ve been having some pretty troubled nightmares.”

Clarke struggles to keep a straight face at the mention of ‘nightmares’ plural.  _Just how long has she been here?_

“I’m going to give you something to flush what they gave out of your system, if that’s okay,” Sienna continues.

She bends down to pick up the packet she threw on the floor and opens the plastic wrapping. Clarke watches as she removes the syringe, then reaches into her pocket and fills it with liquid from a little vial. She approaches Clarke as one would a skittish deer, holding the vial out for her to read.

Clarke eyes her up and down. The one talent she has always been good at is evaluating people’s intentions. Her father used to joke that it was the Watcher in her, a side effect of being able to track and read their futures.

The nurse has an open, honest look to her. Clarke doesn’t detect any lies or any hints of insincerity. Of course, it helps that she recognizes the label on the vial from the medical training her mother gave her. The liquid inside is the right coloring, too. After a final moment of consideration, Clarke relents and lets the woman inject her.

“This should take care of the weakness, and the fuzziness in your head should fade soon. You should be right as rain by the end of the day.”

The cold medicine runs through her veins, and the effect is almost immediate. Clarke gives her arm an experimental flex, the proper control she has regained over her muscles confirming Sienna’s words.

“How did I get here?” Clarke asks, fighting to keep her voice neutral.

“I believe a good Samaritan found you,” Sienna replies, glancing down at her chart. “Lemme check.”

Alarms go off in Clarke’s head at the nurse’s words.

Her father would have never left her here alone. A sinking feeling that something bad has happened to him makes her stomach churn in fear. Clarke can't even be sure she is safe here. That prickly sense of danger crawls in her veins and spreads to every nerve. Everything in her body screams,  _‘MOVE. GET OUT. FIND DAD NOW.’_

She begins to scan the room for anything that could serve as a decent weapon. If the nurse won't leave the room, Clarke will fight her way out if she has to.

“Hmmm, that’s weird,” Sienna murmurs. “It doesn’t say who dropped you off. It’s missing from your file.”

Oblivious to Clarke’s anxiety, the nurse’s head remains down, her eyebrows drawing sharp lines into the shape of a V as she flips through the pages with a frown.

“In fact, there seem to be a few pages missing in general. Hold on.” She reaches over to the phone on the table. “Hey Emori, it’s Sienna. The Jane Doe in 319 is missing pages from her chart. Can you help me find them? Oh, and page Dr. Jackson and let him know the patient is awake?”

Clarke’s heart jumps at this lucky break, her mind spinning a quick plan.

“I’ll be back,” Sienna promises.

As soon as she exits, Clarke leaps to her feet and grabs her bag and the stack of clothes folded neatly on the chair. She glances both ways down the empty hallway, then ducks as fast as she can into the restroom at the end of the hall, trying to keep her bare feet from slapping against the cold floor. The strong antiseptic scent of cleaner hits her nose as she enters, but she’s relieved to find that the room is empty.  _One less thing to worry about._

She rips her hospital gown off and dumps the stiff fabric in the bin. The worn softness of her own shirt and jeans are a welcome change, the snug fit of her faded blue jacket an instant comfort to her. Clarke feels more like herself already. As she slips into her shoes, she smiles at her luck that she was found wearing sneakers instead of something impractical to run in.

Next, Clarke searches her book bag for anything that might help as a disguise. A pair of shades and an Ark University baseball cap lie at the bottom of her bag next to her sketchbook. It isn’t much, but it’ll have to do. She dons both, tucking her mane of blonde hair under the cap, before peeking into the hallway again.

With the coast clear, she darts down the hall, head down to avoid a clear view of her face from the security cameras. If the response time of her mother’s old hospital is any standard to go by, Clarke doesn’t have much time before the nurse returns to check up on her and they sound the alarms.

Through her shades, she peeks around the corner at the nurses’ station. Sienna chats amicably with another nurse and a tall, friendly looking doctor. _Good._ That gives her a chance.

Venturing out, Clarke prays that they take their time gossiping instead of looking for her. She tries to shake her head clear of the tiny spots hampering her view, as she speeds past, lightheaded from moving too fast, too soon. She holds her breath as she walks past the guards stationed at the entrance of the secured area and doesn’t exhale until she has escaped into the morning sun.

The crisp, clean air fills her lungs, and temporary relief courses through her, before high alert kicks in. Clarke starts to run as fast as she can away from the hospital. The more distance she puts between it and her, the lighter her heart feels. The coil of tension that burned in her shoulders starts to unwind, until it dissipates completely at the sight of pedestrians in the streets.

She melts into the crowd and slows her pace to match the brisk walk of the people around her, but the mission to find her father still sits in her head. She needs a plan, and fast. Her energy is already close to being sapped, and the gnawing in her empty stomach is starting to eat into her awareness.

 _Food, water, shelter_ , she lists off in her head. Above all, she needs a safe place to think before all the adrenaline propelling her forward runs out.

Home, she decides, is the best place to start. Clarke looks up to read the street signs to find her bearings. The cross streets put her on the east side of the city. She begins to calculate the distance from her location to her house, but to her dismay, she only finds another hole in her memory where the knowledge of home should be.

With mounting dread, Clarke scans the streets for a newsstand. Her heart sinks when she sees the date on the headlines of the newspapers.

She ducks into an alley to hide and pulls out her sketchbook, searching for the latest drawing, the one she knows she finished yesterday. The sketch of a brown pair of goggles next to a piece of chocolate cake confirms her fear when she checks the date at the bottom and it reads three days ago. She turns the page and discovers a new drawing that she doesn’t remember, this time of a glowing, blue butterfly.

The missing memory is the final nail in the coffin.

Clarke can come to no other conclusion than that a Wiper has erased at least two days from her mind. The only question is if she sought it out herself or if someone forced it on her.

Pushing down her panic, she empties her bag in alley, hoping to find some sort of clue or maybe even some money. All she needs is something to get her started. What she gets are some charcoal pencils, a black pawn, and a rectangle of paper with scribbling on it. Clarke picks up the chess piece in curiosity, wondering if perhaps it might be a clue, since she doesn’t play chess. No memories spring to mind. She picks up the piece of paper next and reads the words on it:

 

_AU COFFEE SHOP. MAY WE MEET AGAIN._

 

Clarke frowns down at the note. She recognizes the reference to the Ark University Grounders coffee place. It is one of her favorite spots to blend in the crowd and peopleWatch, practicing her ability to track and sketch visions of strangers’ futures. But the second sentence jars nothing in her mind; it remains a cryptic message laced with meaning that she doesn’t understand.

Despite the foreign phrase, however, the note does look like she’s written it to herself. She grabs a pencil from the asphalt and writes out the same words under the message. The bold strokes and curves in the lettering of the note match her own handwriting, and Clarke exhales at the confirmation, concludes that it must be another piece to the puzzle. It’s a small relief, but any sign that she volunteered to get her mind Wiped and left herself breadcrumbs to figure out the past is a good sign.

She closes her eyes and tries to focus on the drawing of the butterfly next, willing the vision to appear in her mind’s eye. A sidereel of cloudy pictures unspools frame by frame:

_*FLASH*_

_A girl with long dark hair, but indistinguishable features, flickers in and out._

_*FLASH*_

_In a mist of blurry shadows, a tattoo of a butterfly on her wrist is the only clear detail._

_*FLASH*_

_An empty Grounders coffee cup rolls on the ground._

_*FLASH*_

Clarke shakes her head in frustration. The sedative must be taking its time to exit her system, because it’s interfering with Clarke’s ability to See.

Still, she shrugs to herself, the coffee cup and the note give her a common thread to follow.

At least it’s a place to start.

*~*~*

Despite having the day off, Octavia decided to shower while Bellamy scarfed down his breakfast, so he has to cut his own shower short. With precious few seconds of hot water left to wash the suds away, the pipes rattling loudly within the walls is almost insult to injury as a reminder of his time running out. Bellamy sighs, resigned. Part of him aches for the days of proper pressurized showerheads and non-leaky pipes before he banishes the thought completely.  _Hot water is not worth the price of freedom._

He finishes quickly and dresses even faster, because he really does need to get to work even if his sister can relax.

“It's so ridiculous that you have to work, even on Unity Day,” Octavia says as he brushes his teeth.

“I volunteered to pick up the extra shift,” he replies before spitting into the sink. He rinses and wipes his chin. “It pays time and a half, and we need those pipes fixed.”

“You sure there isn't anyone else we could ask?”

“Unless you've decided to switch majors, no one comes to mind,” he says, pulling on his shoes.

“I could always—”

“ _No_ ,” Bellamy cuts her off with a stern warning. “I've told you before, we're not asking her for anything.”

“Bellamy, you're being dumb,” she complains, following him out of the bedroom. “Why are we paying some prejudiced asshole double to make repairs when you could just swallow your damn pride and apologize?”

He scoffs. "An apology isn't going to do anything. It won’t bring anyone back.”

“Well it's a start.” He shoots her a skeptical look. She throws her hands up in the air. “Fine, then we should do something about the highway robbery you're just donating our money to.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know? File a discrimination complaint?”

“Yeah? To who?” he chides, zipping up his jacket. “Nobody cares about us.”

A loud banging on front door brings their conversation to a screeching halt. Barely anyone ever knocks on their door, and certainly not this early in the morning.

“BELLAMY BLAKE, OPEN UP!”

The authoritative voice causes them both to freeze as recognition settles in. Octavia shoots him a worried look.

Bellamy jogs to the door and looks through the peephole, confirming his fear: Division agents. And not just the Normal ones but Psychics, the Judases who trade their services to Division for a more comfortable life in the mountain base. That fucking blowhard Mover, Kane, and his resident Sniff, Shumway, stand right outside their door.

“Disappear. Now,” he tells Octavia, his voice brooking no room for argument.

Bellamy runs to the kitchen drawer and pulls out his gun, wracking his brain for a place to hide the contraband weapon. If the Division agents catch him with a gun, they'll arrest him for sure, and they'll have every right to under the law that prohibits civilian Psychics from owning one. His eyes land on the cereal box on the counter, and he snatches it up. The gun stashed safe inside, Bellamy places it high up on the fridge, behind some bags of coffee.

“OPEN UP OR I BLAST THIS DOOR FOR YOU,” Kane calls through the door.

“Whatever happens, you do not show yourself. And if it gets bad, you run. Got it? You don’t look back," he orders.

Octavia nods, frantic, and fades away into the shadows.

He takes a deep, calming breath, puts his phone to his ear and opens the door.

“And that's the last I want to hear about it!” he yells into his cellphone. Bellamy pretends to end the call and when he looks up, the surprise on his face is feigned. The scowl he allows to take over his face is not.

Marcus Kane stands in the entryway, a tall and imposing figure with his gun and electric baton clipped smartly at his side. He is every bit the perfect picture of a disciplined soldier, with his regulation length hair slicked back and black Division uniform pressed so neatly Bellamy can see the crease. For a second, he thinks that this time Kane might actually act like the upstanding authority figure he’s always pretended to be.

And then he opens his mouth and proves that he is still the same condescending prick Bellamy remembers.

“Bellamy Blake. How nice of you to invite us in.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes, but steps aside. “No. Please. Come in. Make yourself at home,” he deadpans with a mock salute.

Next to Kane, Shumway bristles at his tone before he strolls past. The Sniff pulls off his gloves and immediately gets to work searching the inside of the apartment, touching everything in sight with his bare hands. Bellamy fights the urge to follow his every movement and tries stay cool, maintaining the façade that he has nothing to hide.

“Nice place,” Kane quips, strutting to the center of the room. He surveys the apartment like it’s another of his weekly inspections at the base, and Bellamy tries not to shift under the scrutiny.

Their home is hardly messy. It can only be described as spartan at best, with just a few objects scattered on the couch and the counter that serves as their dining table. He and Octavia have never had much. It was more practical to have fewer things to pack at a moment’s notice, but also because fewer possessions make for fewer artifacts for Sniffs to track.

But no matter how many limits he puts on them, they still need things to survive. Bellamy thinks about all the items he touched just this morning alone: his towel, the fridge handle, the dirty dishes that sit soaking in the sink. His stomach coils in tension as Shumway walks around the apartment, running his naked palms everywhere, Sniffing for clues. His careless digits skim the walls, along the TV screen, and over so many objects, any one of which could show Shumway a vision of whatever it is they’re looking for in Bellamy’s past. Bellamy wonders what visions he is picking up, which of his secrets his belongings are exposing with the mere touch of Shumway’s hands.

“How’s the rent?” Kane asks congenially, forcing Bellamy’s attention back to him.

“Perks of working for a university. Free on-campus housing,” he replies. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Shumway hovering near the bedroom door. Bellamy’s hands ball into tight fists at his side.

“Clearly you get what you pay for,” Kane says, judgment dripping from his voice. He leans in and speaks in a low voice. “It is so sad to see you like this, Blake. You should come back to Mt. Weather. You were so promising as a cadet. Now you’re just, what? A janitor?”

“Better to collect trash than to be it,” Bellamy spits back. “I’m no traitor to my kind. Tell me, do you sleep better at night in your warm, cozy bed, knowing that your comfort has been paid for by selling other Psychics out?”

A patronizing look of arrogance is Kane’s only reply. Bellamy sneaks a glance back toward the bedroom. When Shumway disappears into it, Bellamy has to squash the instinct to sprint after him.

 _Shadows block clairvoyant visions from Sniffs_ , he reminds himself. Even if Shumway can pick up on Bellamy in his visions, there is no way he will be able to See Octavia in them. She has spent her whole life Shadowing herself from them, hiding right under their noses. Her skills are too practiced to show up on the clairvoyant plane; hell, his baby sister can turn invisible on the physical plane, and Bellamy only knows a handful of Shadows who can do that.

 _She’ll be fine,_ he thinks.  _Just keep them focused on me_. He turns back to Kane and surprises himself with how steady he keeps his voice.

“It's been a while,” Bellamy challenges, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “About four years, right?”

“Five,” Kane corrects mildly, refusing to rise to the bait. “But I know you’ve been counting.”

Bellamy smirks back. “Took you long enough to find me.”

“You've been smart, I’ll give you that,” Kane concedes. “Making spur of the moment decisions that Watchers can't track, always on the move.”

Bellamy thinks about all the times Octavia has complained about being uprooted from their home, the relentless, untethered state their life has become over the last five years.

“Pretty clever, hiding in plain sight. We visited the Boat Clan District, the Ice Nation, even TonDC to see if you'd show your face. Never thought to look for you right here in downtown Polis.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes at the idea of even attempting to hide in the TonDC district, the unofficial hub of all Resistance activity. He may hate Division, but he’s not stupid enough to get in the middle of their war with the Resistance.

“Hey Shumway,” Bellamy calls out, “Guess you didn’t get that raise.”

Shumway re-enters the living room, all smarm and teeth in a shrewd, dangerous smile. “I just needed the right thing to start the trail, Blake.”

He holds up a red children’s toothbrush, standard Mt. Weather-issued sized and the exact same shade Bellamy used when he was living at the base.

“Your Mommy donated that,” he taunts.

Bellamy’s face grows hot with fury when he recognizes it, because he knows his mother wouldn’t have given something like that up without a fight. He tries not to picture what they might have done to her to get it, but the thoughts come unbidden to his mind. All he sees is red.

“Don't talk about my mother!”

He lunges for Shumway, but Kane grabs him by the collar before Bellamy can reach him. With lightning speed, he Punches Bellamy hard in the gut, putting the accelerated force of what feels like a metric ton behind his fist. Bellamy drops like a sack of potatoes to the floor. Shumway strides over and whips out his electric baton. He zaps Bellamy once, then again, until he’s curled up in a ball, writhing in pain.

“Relax, kid,” Shumway says, crouching down to his level. “We aren't here for you. We just want the girl.”

A thousand protests run through Bellamy’s mind at his words, because there is no way that they could possibly know about Octavia. His sister has no record of her birth, no government ID that hasn’t been faked by some Shift, no trace that she even existed. He and his mother made sure of it.

Still, Bellamy can’t help the wildness in his eyes at even the vaguest reference to her by the Division agent.

“What girl?” he wheezes and coughs, loudly, to mask his panic behind his pain.

“You’ve gotten to be a better liar,” Kane notes.

He reads Bellamy’s face with a watchful eye, as Shumway gets up and walks to the couch, fingertips lingering on every item in his path. Bellamy tries to control the twitch in his face when he lands on the hoodie Octavia was wearing during breakfast, but Kane whistles low and gives a curt nod.

Bellamy holds his breath as Shumway picks up the blue Ark University sweatshirt and concentrates on Reading the article of clothing. He brings it close to actually smell with his nose, as if the scent might trigger a deeper memory and reveal a buried vision. The longer Shumway holds the garment, Sniffing out its history for a clue, the more worry spreads in Bellamy’s chest.

 _Shadows block Sniffs from Seeing them in visions,_ he chants to himself.  _She’s safe. She’s safe. She’s safe_.

“He's telling the truth, boss,” Shumway confirms, frowning after an eternity of silence. “Didn’t Sniff anyone out but him in this crappy shoebox since he moved in. She isn’t here.”

Bellamy grunts again to hide the sigh of relief he exhales. “I told you,” he grits out with an overly pained breath. “There is no girl.”

Kane reaches out to help him up. Bellamy brushes his arm off with a brusque yank and wobbles to his feet on his own. The pain sears in his side but he powers through it, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.

“Now that that’s established,” Bellamy growls, “if you're done assaulting me, I’d like you to get out the fuck out of my apartment.”

He Throws a blast with a practiced hand, sending the front door flying open. Shumway reaches for his gun, but Kane stops him with an infinitesimal shake. With the unspoken command issued, Shumway stalks to the exit.

“It was good seeing you again, Blake,” he snarks, patting Bellamy’s cheek on his way out. Bellamy grinds his jaw and tamps down the desire to rip Shumway’s arm from its socket.

Kane takes his time as he strolls to the door. “You'll let us know if a girl comes by,” he says, more of a statement than a question.

Bellamy snorts. “Yeah. Sure. I'll text you  _all_  the details about my sex life as it happens.”

“Consider my offer to come back to the Mountain, Bellamy,” he offers again. “You could do some real good trying to fix the system from within instead of running away from it. You’re better than…” he gestures with open distaste at the messy apartment behind them, “… _this_.”

After a long moment of silence with no response save a stone-faced glare, Kane shrugs his shoulders and steps away.  “Think about it, Bellamy,” he calls out over his shoulder, his voice echoing down the hall in his wake.

Bellamy waits an eternity until finally, the Division agent disappears from view. It takes all of his effort to control the shake in his hands as he shuts the door behind him. Only when it’s over does he let his body relax. He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the rough wood and peeling paint. Octavia appears from the kitchen wallpaper and rushes to his side.

“Are you okay?” She runs worried palms over him, checking his side. Bellamy tries not to grimace when her fingers press against the newly formed bruises on his ribs.

“I’m fine, O,” he reassures her. Bellamy turns and forces a smile.

“You’re sure?” she asks again.

“Yeah. Just peachy,” he says, straightening. She looks at him in skepticism. “I said I’m okay,” he insists.

“Good,” she says after a beat. The satisfied look on her face quickly transforms into a look of disgust. “Also, eww gross. Your sex life, Bellamy?” she exclaims with an exaggerated shudder.

Octavia ducks from the half-hearted swipe he sends at her head with ease. "If you ever bring a girl here, you better put a sock on the door,” she warns, pointing a finger at him.

He chuffs quietly and is about to retort back when three insistent knocks tap at the door.

They pause again and listen.

A muffled female voice sounds through the door. “Excuse me, can I get some help? My friend has twisted his ankle, and I can’t carry him.”

Bellamy cocks an eyebrow at her, and Octavia huffs again, but fades obediently out of sight. He hesitates for another moment, then carefully cracks the door open just an inch.

In an instant, the doorknob is pried from his grasp, and two figures force their way into the apartment. A bald, dark skinned man with a striking tattoo curling up his neck strides in without preamble. His looming figure and broad shoulders hide his partner from view for a moment, but when Bellamy catches sight of her, he knows by the way she carries herself that she is the more lethal threat of the two, despite her compact frame. She wears her leather jacket like armor compared the man's softer outfit of a zip-up sweatshirt and jeans. Steeled purpose glints in her eyes, and her dramatic dark eyeliner and twisted braid of blonde dyed hair only sharpen the edge of her look. Danger radiates out her like a warning beacon; even her cheekbones look like they could cut glass.

“Step aside,” she commands, shoving him to the far wall as they move to the center of his living room.

“Who are you?” Bellamy demands, pushing back against her hand.

The woman ignores his question and holds him at a distance. The man puts his hand on her forearm in an attempt to relax her grip.

“There are more peaceful ways to convince cooperation than by force,” he says in a placid voice that confirms Bellamy’s assessment.

“Always playing the peacekeeper, Lincoln,” the woman sneers.

She says ‘peacekeeper’ like an insult, but the man just lets the comment slide, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “At least you didn’t punch your way through this time.”

The woman grunts. “That was  _one_  time.”

Lincoln drops his hand and tilts his head at her in an odd way that makes Bellamy suspect this is an exchange they have had many times before.

“Besides, we don’t need him.” Piercing eyes remain trained on his. “We just need her.”

“That’s not how I see it,” Lincoln replies.

It’s only then that he notices the sketchbook Lincoln is gesturing with in his other hand, and he realizes with horror that the man is a Watcher. No Shadow can hide from a Watcher for long, no matter how good they are. His thoughts spring to his sister hiding somewhere in the room, and he prays she'll listen for once and do what she’s told, that she’ll forget him and run as far away as possible while she still can.

On instinct, Bellamy Throws a shockwave at the two strangers, desperate to buy Octavia some time. The Watcher goes soaring in the air and falls behind the couch, but incredibly, the woman uses the force of his blast to flip mid-air, twist and jump off the wall.

She lands in a crouch. Bellamy digs in his heels in a defensive stance. He puts his arms up to prepare for a counter Move, only for her to whip an actual weapon at him using her hands. A metal throwing star embeds itself in the drywall near his ear, taking his shirt sleeve with him. Two more follow, effectively pinning his dominant arm to the wall, too fast for him to even react.

He throws his other arm up and tries to Toss a stool at her head, but she weaves and ducks it without sparing a glance. She charges at him; then suddenly the woman blinks out of existence.

Bellamy rears back in confusion, trying to figure out what just happened, but before his mind can catch up with his eyes, she appears right in front of his face, pressing a gun to his stomach with one hand and a gleaming knife at his throat with the other.

“You're a Shadow?” Bellamy chokes out in surprise.

Most Shadows shift like wallflowers, blending into the background and drawing as few eyes to themselves as possible. It comes hand in hand with masking themselves or other people, or so he’s always been told.

Shadows don’t move like this woman does, with such confidence, taking up so much space. They don’t command attention the way she did, the second she stepped into view. He's never seen a Shadow act like this before.

“I thought you were a Mover,” he stammers.

Her face remains impassive, eyes glinting like flint. “You Movers are all the same. All aggression, no thought. Try that again, and it will be the last thing you do.” His Adam’s apple bobs against the cold metal as she stares him down. Without breaking her gaze, she calls behind her shoulder to her companion. “Lincoln?”

The Watcher stands and brushes himself off. “I’m okay, Anya.”

“You see where words and weakness get you?” she snarls, glaring at Bellamy. “Find the girl.”

Bellamy inhales a sharp breath at the command.  _Please be far away, O._

“Let him go. I'm here.”

His heart sinks at the sound of Octavia's voice, a mixture of annoyance and fear spiking in him over his bull-headed, stubborn, brave, little sister.

*~*~*

When the girl steps out of the darkness, shedding her invisibility like a cloak, it feels like she is walking straight out of one of Lincoln’s visions.

He’s Seen this girl before, so many times that he’d recognize the defiant jut of her chin anywhere. The angry shine in her eyes stands in contrast to her small, athletic frame, but in the flesh, she projects the same fierce protectiveness that Lincoln drew comfort from since he was a child. For as long as he can remember, this girl has been the touchstone guarding his dreams at night, and in the day, the only constant in his visions who wasn’t drenched in an endless cycle of blood or death.

He has grown so used to Seeing her with his mind’s eye, that the unexpected presence of her physical form makes Lincoln blink twice in surprise to make sure she’s really there.

Over the years, he’s Seen various incarnations of her, at different ages and looks, but this version of her matches perfectly with one of his first visions: the one of her offering him a white lily.

Lincoln had always believed that that moment in time would be their first meeting. This is the youngest age he has ever Seen her in all his visions; yet here she is in front of him, no flower in sight. The words of his mother rattle in his mind:  _‘The future is never what you expect it to be, my darling, even for those of us who are blessed with the Sight.’_

“Well, is it her?” Anya asks, full of impatience as always.

Lincoln snaps out of his reverie. “She’s not the girl we seek, but she is the one we need,” he says, eyes still fixed on the girl.

“What does that supposed to mean? Why must all you Watchers speak in riddles?” Anya mutters under her breath. She lowers her voice further to prevent curious ears from overhearing. “Is she the girl the Commander seeks or not?”

She is not.

The vision of a girl falling from the sky is one that Lincoln has been waiting for a very long time, even longer than he has been waiting to meet his Flower Girl. Ever since that strange Watcher woman Told him the Sky Girl would forever bind him to his childhood friend, that it would be his responsibility in this war, the Sky Girl has been a shadowy specter hovering at the fringes of his mind.

(When he finally received it—  _the blonde girl falling from the sky, the Mountain crumbling, the Heda and the girl leading the charge of victory in battle_ — the vision came, of all times, in the middle of breakfast. He had to drop the bowl of cereal he was eating, sending it shattering to the ground, to grasp onto something. The flashes really did come at the most inopportune moments sometimes.)

The Sky Girl is not the same girl in front of them. Not with her brown hair and green eyes that flash as she converses in angry whispers with her brother in their corner. Yet when his Flower Girl meets his gaze and their eyes lock, Lincoln knows in his bones that she will still play a part in this war. It can be no coincidence his latest vision showed the Sky Girl shaking hands with this girl’s brother in the very apartment they are standing.

“No,” he answers, tearing his eyes away from her, “but I have seen this girl before. She is important too.”

Anya’s eyebrows furrow. “You are sure you have the right place? Jobi nuts are often unreliable, and forced visions are never as good as the natural ones,” she points out.

“I am certain. Have I ever been wrong?” The edge in his voice drives deep like a splinter, a small but sharp reminder of the last time she failed to listen to his visions.

She grouses in response. “We must be early then. The Commander will not be pleased,” she whispers, but apparently not low enough because the girl perks up.

“Are you with the Resistance?”

“Octavia, shut up,” the boy says.

 _Octavia_. Her name is Octavia.

“No, Bellamy, they can help. Mom’s in trouble.”

“And you still haven’t told me where you’re getting your information.”

“Does it matter? Those agents proved that it’s true.”

Lincoln can’t help but be proud at the fire in her words, recognizing the strength that has been ever present in all his visions of her.

Octavia strides over to them. Her hand burns like a brand on his skin when she places it on his arm. “Our mother is trapped in Mt. Weather—”

“We don't need their help,” her brother cuts her off, pulling her away.

“We should consider it,” Lincoln says abruptly. Anya sends him an incredulous look at his words.

The boy scoffs, and Anya does not take kindly to his response either.

“Your kind of help always comes with strings attached,” Bellamy says, not bothering to hide his disdain. “No thanks.”

“Our mission was the girl. Not making deals with people who sit on the sidelines,” Anya replies with equal distaste. “There’s nothing for us here. Let’s go.”

She marches out of the apartment. Lincoln follows with reluctance, shooting a lingering look at Octavia as he leaves.

He hears muffled arguments as the door slams behind him, and the sound triggers something in his mind’s eye. His eyes flutter closed. He braces himself, gripping the wall for balance as the chilling sensation creeps up his backbone, past his neck, and spikes into his brain. A burst of technicolor scenes unfolds before him:

_*FLASH*_

_The battle cries of his people clash against the shouts of the Division agents. Explosions blast in the hallways. Bullets rip through the air. Bodies fall, countless and unending, some dropping from the different levels in the base, tipping over the railings and plummeting to their deaths. The carnage is devastating, spattered blood from both sides staining the walls, and it is impossible to tell friend from foe in the heaping death._

_*FLASH*_

_Bellamy hangs from the ceiling, strung up by his hands in chains. His body convulses as they inject the Red into him. The pupils in his eyes blow wide, contracting and dilating in pulses until they take on a cat-eye shape, the sign of a successful Bleeder transformation. He opens his mouth, and ear-splitting screams are all that escape._

_*FLASH*_

_“LEXA!” the Sky Girl screams._

_The Commander falls, blood gushing from her wound, and the Sky Girl catches her, sobbing. The_ Heda _gurgles in pain, choking up red rivulets as she tries to speak, while the Sky Girl's tears drip onto her face. Anya lies behind them, her neck cracked violently to the side, her body unnaturally bent like a broken doll over the rubble of glass, metal and tattered books. Burning pages flutter to the ground as his kinsman, Indra, struggles on the ground, painting a wide crimson streak on the floor in her wake. She crawls towards the once giant, towering Gustus, now toppled, brain splattered on the tile at the Commander’s side. The Sky Girl rocks back and forth, cradling the dead_ Heda _in her arms, the only life left surrounded by death._

_*FLASH*_

_Octavia screams in pain as the doctor, the same woman with the cold eyes who has haunted Lincoln’s dreams as a child, drills into her. She plunges a syringe into Octavia, drawing out dark red, almost black, liquid from her hip. Terror fills Octavia’s eyes, all the fight in her gone, leaving only crippling fear and despair._

_*FLASH*_

Lincoln gasps for breath when the visions leave him, staggering under the weight of the images he cannot shake from his mind. Anya disappears down the stairs at the end of hall, and he tears after her, the rhythm of his feet hitting the ground in competition with the pounding of his heart. The new changes to the future are ones he cannot let come to fruition. Not to them. Not to her.

“We need to help them!” he calls out, stampeding down the stairs.

Anya rolls her eyes. “We have no use of them.”

“We do,” he insists vehemently.

“Just because you have eyes for the girl doesn’t mean they are relevant.”

“We need them. I have Seen it.”

“You goddamn Watchers and your goddamn visions,” she gripes.

“ _ANYA_.” He yanks her to a stop when they get to the bottom of the stairs. She levels him with a look, and he switches to a different approach, grasping at anything that will make her heed his words. “When was the last time you saw a Shadow go invisible like you can? For that long? At her age?”

And that gives Anya pause. Lincoln sees the gears moving in her head, the mental calculations whirring in his friend’s brilliant tactician mind, and then he pulls his final trump card.

“You ignored me when I was thirteen, and Costia’s parents died.” Anya’s face hardens at the mention of her name. “Please. Without them, we all die,” he presses again.

Anya hesitates, then turns to walk away. “I'll report to the Commander. You follow the girl,” she orders. “And Lincoln? You better not be wrong.”

Lincoln sags against the wall, the phantom images from his vision still drifting in the rafters of his mind. With all the death and destruction he Sees coming in this war, he only hopes that he’s wrong about some.


	3. Act I: That Fight or Flight Response (2/2)

  

“It’s too early.”

“No, it’s the perfect time to attack.”

“We have the numbers.”

“But we don’t have the training. Overplaying our hand will lead to our demise. Don’t you agree, Commander?”

The Council of the Twelve Clans turns with expectant looks to Lexa: eight fuzzy faces on a screen, flickering every so often from the encrypted channel, and three in person standing around the table. Between the eleven of them, they have over 150 years of military or combat training, and all of them are double her twenty-one years, in some cases triple her age; yet they cannot agree on a single thing.

Lexa wants to pinch the bridge of her nose to stave off the oncoming headache from the circular argument they continue to have in her presence, but it would be unbecoming for a leader of her stature. Instead she turns to her left, to the trusted chief of the TonDC district.

“Indra, how many Movers do we have in our ranks?” she asks, careful to keep her voice neutral.

“Over five hundred,  _Heda_ ,” Indra responds with confidence. “And there are many others, not just Movers, who continue to join the cause. Reports of reaped Psychics have nearly quadrupled in the last six months alone, and that number is compounding with every day. The people have grown tired of watching their unarmed brothers and sisters being shot in the streets and taken by Bleeders, of being arrested simply for giving voice to these injustices.”

The heated fervor in Indra’s speech matches the growing unrest she speaks of, and it riles up agreement from half of the generals. “We have over two thousand men and women in TonDC alone, ready to fight at your command,” she finishes.

“We should attack NOW,” Quint shouts, slamming an impatient fist down on the table. “You feckless Boat Clan cowards are too far to feel the effects the Mountain so you don’t care that we are suffering. Blood must have blood!”

Lexa has only to raise an eyebrow at his outburst before the hot-headed general visibly shrinks back, cowed in shame. She looks to Luna in apology, but blessed, level-headed Luna shakes her head with a smile, letting her know no apology is needed. If only all of her generals had such patience.

“And if I were to give the command,” Lexa continues, her voice calm and steady, “how many would be able to follow orders and not lose their heads in the heat of battle?”

The hesitation to respond and the ripple of murmurs among the men and women are all the answers she needs.

“Luna and Gustus are right,” Lexa declares. “We have more Movers in our ranks than we ever have, but we cannot have a riot on our hands. A mob is not an army. Our people are outmatched and outgunned.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Anya in the doorway, idly playing with a knife in her hands.

“Continue training your people, and do it quickly. Focus on drills that will ready them for an attack through the tunnels, and be sure they are prepared for the chaos in the dark of night. The time for attack will be upon us soon enough,” she commands. “Until the next time.”

The boxes from the video conference fill with static one by one, and Lexa nods her head in dismissal to the generals left in the room. They file out, passing Anya on their way, but Indra lingers.

“It isn’t wise to attack from the tunnels,” Indra advises.

“The tunnels have no cameras or surveillance, only Movers and guards,” Lexa counters evenly.

“They’re too heavily guarded, and unless you’re a Watcher and can predict where they’ll be, there’s no getting past them. We should consider an aerial approach to the base.”

“Lincoln has Foretold our destruction if we choose that path,” she replies, and at that Indra grows silent. She shifts in quiet consideration, and if it is an unfair tactic to use Indra’s nephew against her, Lexa will accept that criticism in exchange for the effectiveness it has in taking the wind out of her sails.

“I trust in your counsel, Indra,” she reassures. “The comment on our battle readiness was not directed at your leadership but at Quint. I doubt there is anyone in your ranks who would dare disobey an order from you.” Lexa steals a glance toward Anya, who has wandered to the side, skimming her hands over the spread of assorted weapons on the nearest table. “I know from experience; your former Second passed your lessons on well.” 

She sees the mollified look spread on Indra’s face, and to seal the deal, Lexa breaks her own protocol by clasping her shoulder. “We will have our revenge soon. Blood will have blood,” she promises, echoing Quint’s words.

Indra gives a curt salute and exits the room. Lexa watches her leave, and her heart begins to race when she and Anya are left alone. She tries to quash the anticipation of Anya’s report of the Sky Girl, busies herself by gathering the maps and plans scattered on the table from the meeting. She intends to ask Anya to relate her information after she has composed herself, but Anya is Anya, and of course she speaks out of turn.

“You know, Alexandria,” she drawls, “when I gave you that lecture of preparedness as a child, I meant to ensure you didn’t adopt the Mover arrogance of going into battle without Kevlar.”

She toys with the military-grade body armor at the far end of the table, fingers tracing the grooves and lines of the chest plate.

“I didn’t mean having the entire army standing at the ready with nowhere to go.”

Lexa fights the habitual instinct to straighten her back at the jab of criticism, choosing instead to examine the latest plans Gustus has drawn up detailing Mt. Weather’s weakest points.

“This is what you have prepared me for. To do what is necessary to save our people,” she replies without looking up. “And I told you not to call me that.”  

“Preparation is nothing without a solid plan of attack, Lexa,” she says, advancing closer.

“There is a plan.”

“You haven’t told them about how the girl fits into this plan yet,” Anya points out, a new sharpness in her voice.

“I will when the time is right.”

“Do  _you_  even know what her role is?”

Finally Lexa slants her head up, casting Anya an unspoken warning not to overstep her bounds. “I take it by the fact that you’re here alone that you didn’t find her?” she asks, deliberately light.

“No.”

Lexa schools her face to remain impassive at the news. “Then is there a reason you are here in person, instead of calling on your burner phone?”

Anya stalls, and Lexa bites back a sigh. “I know you still think that Division's drones will track them and find us, but even Gustus assures me the encryption cannot be cracked.”

“I still prefer the old method better, but I am not afraid of technology, Lexa. I do know how to use a phone.”

“Then why are you not out there continuing your search?”

“Lincoln insists it was the right place, but perhaps he was wrong,” Anya argues. “Maybe she hasn't arrived in the city at all.”

“Did he have another vision?” Lexa inquires.

Anya falters under the question and pauses. “He didn’t tell me of any more visions of the Sky Girl,” she answers too carefully, after a beat.

Lexa grows curious at her tone. Anya is hiding something, but she allows it, trusting that her former guardian-turned-advisor will inform her when the time is right.

“Then what occurred was necessary to it make it happen,” she says with unruffled composure. “It was Foreseen, just like my birth.”

Anya swears under her breath in exasperation. “And the future can change. Just by us talking about it, we could have already altered the timeline,” she says, raising her voice.

Lexa squares her shoulders and steps forward, giving her full attention to the conversation. “I don’t understand, Anya. Why are you so distrustful of visions? They have saved countless lives, including yours.”

“I just don’t see the point in putting all our faith in something that can change on a whim.”

“Yes, but why only now?” Lexa presses. “You have never been this vocal before. What changed?”

“We don't even know if this  _girl_  is alive or if she exists at all,” Anya deflects, dancing around the question. “For all we know, she could’ve not been born yet and we are chasing after a dream.”

“She has to exist. Cos—” Lexa stumbles on her name, and she’s grateful Anya is the only witness to her weakness. “Costia had a vision, and I trust that. I trust her. You should too,” she chides.

“I miss her too.”

And Lexa closes her eyes, because she knows Anya does. The quiet declaration punctures a hole in their argument, and the anger between them deflates like a balloon.

Costia had a brightness that even Anya’s stoicism had no defense against. Anya always regarded her with the same mix of duty and gruff affection as she did with Lexa, but there was an extra layer of leeway that Costia was allowed (and not just because Lexa was the  _Heda_ ).

Lexa almost smiles at the memory of the time Anya let Costia convince her to join an impromptu water fight. It never happened again, and Anya insisted on breaking down all the mistakes they made in their defensive stances and approaches of attack when they were done. She never could pass up a teaching moment. But they had been happy, once.

“I am proud of you, Lexa,” Anya begins again. “You have done well to lead our people, brought together the Twelve Clans, and turned us into a force to be reckoned with. You have grown into the Commander I have always known you would become.”

Lexa waits for the ‘but’ that is sure to follow the compliment.

“But you have a blind spot when it comes to this girl and this vision. You always have. I would be a poor advisor if I didn’t point it out to you.” Anya looks at her with a sage righteousness, the kind Lexa has not seen since she was sixteen. “I worry your grief has led to an obsession with this prophecy.”

Lexa silences her with a sharp glare. If Anya will not explain to her why she is so adverse to visions of the future, then she has no business advising Lexa against believing in them— and even less business implying that Lexa doesn’t hold the interests of their people above everything else. Not when she’s given up so much.

“Where is Lincoln now?” she demands, diverting the line of questioning back to the topic that made Anya squirm, or her version of it anyway.

“He’s following a lead.” Anya hesitates again, and Lexa only lets it slide once more because she picks up on her discomfort this time. The way she says it, this ‘lead’ is not Anya’s idea, which means Lincoln is where he needs to be.

Lexa’s never been close to Lincoln, despite— or maybe because of— the deep friendship he shared with Costia. A shameful part of her, one she doesn’t like to admit exists, can’t help but be envious of the years he had with Costia that she never got. In Lexa’s worst moments of missing her, she resents his presence as the Watcher at her side.

But if there’s anyone whose commitment to honor Costia’s last wishes matches her own, it’s Lincoln.

“Wait for him, and then find me immediately once he returns.” 

“Lexa—”

“Enough,” she says coldly, all patience evaporated. “You have your orders.”

Anya stares her down for a beat, then stands down. “ _Heda_.”

It is only when she is left alone in her isolation that Lexa allows her mask to slip and lets herself slump into one of the chairs next to the table. The combination of managing the Council and Anya’s criticisms has taken a toll on her, and she rubs her forehead to ease the ache in her head.

From underneath the pile of papers, she sees the corner of Lincoln’s drawing peeking out. She pulls on it to reveal the sketch that has consumed her thoughts for the last five days.

Taking up most of the page is a simple drawing, the shape of a girl falling from the stars above the city. It’s almost too simplistic for Lincoln’s caliber of artistry, but in the right bottom corner, he has also drawn a more detailed portrait of her face. Lexa can’t stop staring: at the curve of her chin, the slope of her nose, the thin, serious line of her mouth, and the tiny beauty mark above her upper lip. However, the most arresting feature of the picture, even more than the dramatic silhouette hovering over the buildings and the mountain backdrop, are the girl’s striking blue eyes, the only color in the entire sketch.

She traces along the lines of the girl’s face, and recites from memory Costia’s message again, a mantra she has memorized, picked apart and parsed for meaning, word by word, every day for five years.

_‘One day, a girl is going to fall out of the sky. You need to help her, you understand? She might fight you on it and push back, but she’ll need your guidance and support. Help her and you help all of us.’_

Lexa will admit, half of her hopes that Lincoln is wrong, and the time for her to face her destiny has not yet come. The Sky Girl will change everything, and now that the moment is near, it fills her with an anxiety she thought she had outgrown. The other half is desperate to hurry the moment along so that she can meet this person who was so important, Costia used her last moments to speak of her coming instead of saying, ‘I love you,’ one last time. Only then, when she knows why, can she finally find peace with Costia’s choice.

 _What makes you so special, Sky Girl?_  she wonders to herself, and stares at the drawing long into the morning.

*~*~*

“Special abilities, equal rights! Special abilities, equal rights!”

“That’s right!” a young man on a makeshift platform shouts into a bullhorn. “Special abilities still need equal rights! Just because they’re Psychics doesn’t mean they aren’t normal like us!”

Octavia snorts, sidestepping the small crowd of the campus protesters, all carrying signs and handing out flyers along the well-manicured lawn. _By definition, Psychics aren’t Normals, idiots._   _Find a better argument to help us._

It’s just as well a painful squelch of feedback from the bullhorn overpowers the man’s tinny voice, cutting short his impassioned speech. She rolls her eyes when she finally sees at his shirt, which reads ‘Respect Existence or Expect Resistance,’ and tries not to be bitter towards the well-intentioned naïveté of college student activists.

It’s easy to fight from the safety of the university; it’s quite another to actually join the Resistance and protest closer north, near Mt. Weather. Unity Day, with its kumbaya history of unlikely allies coming together, always brings out over-eager Normals who are all talk and no action. Sure, they might preach equality and say they’re willing to help, but when it actually comes to do something about it, they’re nowhere to be found.

She glances around at the campus authorities and the ever-present Division agents who patrol the streets of the city to gauge their reaction to the protest. On any other day, they’d start arresting people and break up the demonstration, however peaceful. And perhaps, if Psychics were leading the charge, they would— and probably do worse than just arrest them.

But today is the day before Unity Day weekend, so charitable feelings abound.

Besides, the festivities in the streets easily drown out the noise of the harmless protesters. Workers decorate the city in preparation for the festival, crowding the sidewalks and streets. Octavia drinks in the sight of the rare exception Unity Day provides for Psychics to display their powers in the open without fear of recrimination.

From the ground, Movers raise their arms and Lift up long twine ropes attached to banners of plastic triangle flags, Tying them to telephone poles so they stretch across the street in crisscross patterns overhead. Shifters work side by side, experimenting with different patterns for the posters with quick waves of their hands. Dozens of abstract designs of grey mountains, blue stars, and green trees cycle through in seconds. Old designs mutate into new ones on the vinyl, constantly morphing until supervisors nod their approval. The bright, clear day only adds to the bustling atmosphere, as coffee shops and restaurants open their outdoor seating and play loud, festive music.

Octavia smiles to herself wistfully. Just once, she wishes she could let her guard down and join in the fun without fearing that she’ll leave an impression. She doesn’t have to hide as often as she did in Mt. Weather, but she can count on one hand the number of friends who actually know who she is. At the last party she crashed, a masquerade, she had to play the part of the beautiful but mysterious stranger, and Octavia is so tired of that role.

 _Heaven forbid anyone actually remember my face or recognize me_ , she grumbles to herself, until she remembers the pain in Bellamy’s face when Shumway electrocuted him this morning. It’s a stark reminder of what Division is capable of. Even though she wasn’t the target this time, her big brother’s insistence for constant vigilance is not completely unfounded.

Careful to remember everything she touches so she can Shadow the objects later, Octavia opens the door to Grounders and slips into the coffee shop. The place is empty, save the two baristas taking a break from the register. They chat animatedly as they put up Unity Decorations, but rather than call attention to herself, Octavia uses to opportunity to disappear and sneak a coffee.

She slips the payment and some spare change on the counter. Then with a furtive look at the baristas to confirm that they are still occupied, she becomes corporeal again.

“That’s not much of a tip you left,” a voice whispers into her ear.

Octavia lets out a squeak, almost dropping her cup. The baristas’ heads swivel at the sound, and she, in turn, spins around to see Lincoln standing next to her, hiding his mouth behind his hand. She glances back at the baristas with an exaggerated grimace and clutches her thigh.

“Leg cramp,” she explains, then glares up at Lincoln when they shrug and turn away, apparently buying her ruse.

Octavia smacks Lincoln in the stomach with the back of her hand, but the hard planes of his abdominal muscles absorb the hit easily. “God, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Not used to other people sneaking up on you?” he teases.

“Funny,” she says with a dark look, but then she makes the mistake of looking up into Lincoln’s eyes, at the soft way he gazes at her as if she’s the only thing in the room.

“Join me outside?” he asks with a polite smile.

Octavia shakes her head, breaking free of her trance. “Look, I want to help you, but I can’t. And if my brother catches you talking to me…he’s really overprotective of me. Like, annoyingly so.”

“I’m just here for some coffee,” Lincoln says mildly, hands up in the most guileless of fashion. “And you’re here for coffee. And it’s a nice day. So why not just enjoy coffee outside together?”

Octavia snickers at his false innocence. “Go get your order. I’ll wait for you outside,” she relents with a smile.

Lincoln’s face brightens in response, and he goes to do just that, their arms touching as he brushes past. Octavia bites her lip and tries to push away Bellamy’s voice in her head, warning her that she’s flirting with danger again.

Paranoia from Division is one thing; distrust of the only people who are actively trying to take down Mt. Weather is another, she reasons. Distancing themselves from possible allies would be dumb.

 _Besides, he’s cute_. Octavia smiles to herself, sneaking a glance at Lincoln’s butt as he stands at the counter.

Yeah, Bellamy can suck it.

*~*~*

Octavia sips at her coffee and leans in excitedly across the table. “So do you think I could learn how to fight as a Shadow like your friend…”

“Anya,” Lincoln supplies.

“Anya,” she repeats, testing the name out on her tongue. “Because she is my new hero. Totally badass.”

Lincoln chuckles good-naturedly at her enthusiasm. Octavia can’t help but notice how his eyes almost twinkle when he laughs.

“Degrees of ability are affected by two things: experience and genetics,” he explains with the natural confidence of a teacher. “It’s just a matter of controlling your abilities through a mix of mental training and practice, and maximizing your raw potential. Even I could teach you, if you wanted.”

Octavia’s eyes light up at the thought. Actually working on her powers and having someone to train with other than her brother would be amazing; getting to work on them with Lincoln? Now that would just be an added bonus.

“You could teach me to fight even though you’re a Watcher?”

Lincoln nods. “Anya excels because she trains as though she has no powers. She has immense raw ability, but even after all the mental training, she can only disappear for moments at a time, so she has learned to make her entire body into a weapon. You could do the same.”

He pauses and cocks his head at her, doing that thing again where she can feel him zeroing in, trying to puzzle something out about her.

“You have a rare gift, you know. Most Psychics can only Shade things from Sniffs’ clairvoyant visions and stop them from Seeing the object’s history. Not many can disappear themselves from the physical plane.”

Octavia rips the edge of the cardboard holder around her cup, thinking of all the times she wanted to show herself to the other children in the base. Thirteen years of being forced to watch others build friendships and relationships while she stood by like a ghost.

“Yay me,” she deadpans.

“Can you make other people disappear?”

“If only,” she jokes darkly, unable to keep the edge out her voice. The world would be better off if she  _could_  erase certain people off the face of the Earth.

Lincoln takes a long sip from his cup. “Still, it took Anya many years of training and experience in battle to do what she does. You must either have incredible raw potential or you’ve trained for a long time to be able to hide yourself for so long.”

She laughs mirthlessly. “Only my entire life.”

“What’s the longest you’ve gone?”

“Three hours?” she squints, thinking back to the only time she’s truly been angry at Bellamy.

“Wow…that’s…” Lincoln stutters. Octavia grins and basks in his admiration.  “That’s  _impressive_. Who taught you how to do that?”

“My mom.” The answer is automatic, slipping out before she remembers why she wanted to talk to Lincoln in the first place.

For the first time in the hour they have spent in comfortable conversation, an awkward silence wedges itself between them at the mention of her mother. Every thought of her mother forces a never-ending loop in her mind of the message they received in encrypted code from the Mountain: _‘she’s in the Skybox but alive.’_  And there’s nothing she can do about it but wait for breadcrumbs of information. The last two weeks have been torture. They need help.

Octavia itches to ask Lincoln for assistance again, but she knows Bellamy won’t go for it, and she wouldn’t want to do it without him. It doesn’t seem that Lincoln has any more sway with his fellow conspirators either. For the umpteenth time, Octavia wishes she could just be a regular person, with a regular life and a regular means to have something to offer.

But she doesn’t, so she holds her tongue. Lincoln seems to read her intention anyway.

They turn away, avoiding each other’s eyes. Lincoln finds something fascinating in the bottom of his coffee cup, while Octavia find a suitable distraction in the bustle of all the unfinished Unity Day floats being pushed along the streets. Carts crowd close by and follow in their wake, many overflowing with coils of rope, bundles of long, thin pliable wood, and colorful papier-mâché objects that will decorate and fill the holes in the frames of the floats. Others carry crates of fireworks, no doubt in preparation for the big finale at tomorrow’s parade.

Bunches of white paper lilies hang out of one of the carts, and on a whim, she reaches out and steals a flower as the cart wheels by. She twirls it in her hands, then prods a serious-looking Lincoln with it in a teasing poke _._

He looks up sharply for a second, but eases into a soft smile. She likes the way his face looks when he relaxes and accepts her gift. For a man with such a tough, rugged exterior, the gentle way he is holding the flower fits him, she decides. It matches the first words of peace he spoke in the apartment.

Not that she dislikes said rugged exterior. Even though he wears a loose zip-up hoodie to mask them, she can make out the contours in the muscles of his big, strong arms, and anyone with eyes can admire the way his broad chest narrows nicely into a V at his hips. Lincoln has the kind of build she wants to climb like a tree and have her way with, and she doubts she’s the only one.

Octavia eyes him up and down in appreciation, until she realizes that she’s been caught. He smirks at her, lifting an eyebrow, but instead of allowing embarrassment get the better of her, she puffs up with a false bravado and a flirty smile, pretending she meant to let him catch her staring all along.

“I’m kinda surprised that you aren’t a soldier,” she says airily. “You definitely have the muscles for it. But you don’t act like one. You aren’t as…combative as I expected from someone with the Resistance.”

“Because you’ve met so many of us,” Lincoln replies with a wry grin.

“Umm, Anya?” she fires back, and he concedes her point. “You’re not exactly an approachable group. Not many people on your side are so…”

“Cooperative?” he suggests.

“Yeah. More shoot first, ask questions later.”

“There has been much pain on my side,” Lincoln sighs. “People have grown angry, and their rage only continues to build with each injustice. I have Seen so many visions of death and bloodshed. We will end in mutually assured destruction if we all continue on this path, and I fear that version of future.”

“The Resistance is all about starting that bloodshed though. If you’re not like that, why did you join?” she asks.

“The Resistance is all about finding equality for our people,” he corrects. “How we get there is where those among us disagree. Some degree of violence to meet violence is not the same as full out war.” Octavia ponders on that distinction, when Lincoln continues.

“And as for why I joined?” He tugs down the zipper of his sweatshirt and pulls at collar of his t-shirt to reveal a bullet shaped scar. “I was reaped as a child.”

Octavia’s breath catches in her throat. To be reaped by Bleeders is a fear all Psychics have, but to be reaped as a kid?  Octavia has her own terrifying memories of Bleeders, having once wandered into the base’s medical lab as a curious twelve year old.

Invisible to the Division doctors around her, she witnessed how they took lucid Movers and transformed them into Bleeders. She listened as the head doctor lectured her interns on how the Red serum would suppress the reasoning side of the Movers’ brains to make it easier to brainwash them, but that the  _‘unfortunate side effects’_  were that it reduced them to animals.

 _‘It stripped them of the ability to reason or Move anything but their own vocal chords,’_  Dr. Tsing had said.

Octavia shivers at the memory of the clinical description of the  _‘upside,’_  that their voices could be aimed and directed as weapons, sonic blasts loud enough and high enough in pitch to burst blood vessels in the brain, at an agent’s command.

Just watching the Bleeders scream behind protected glass gave her nightmares for months; Octavia can’t imagine how frightened Lincoln must have been to be shot down by tranquilizers and dragged by one of them into Mt. Weather to become another science experiment.

“The icer bullets don’t leave as bad a scar as real ones do,” he reassures her, trying to lighten the mood. “They want to knock you out so they can still use you, not kill you.”

She moves closer and reaches out to trace the scar, examining it with unrestrained curiosity. Seconds pass before she realizes she’s stroking Lincoln’s chest in the broad daylight. She blushes a little but slowly retracts her hand in what she hopes is a controlled, cool manner.

“How did you get out?”

“The Resistance sent people for me. Anya and two family friends came and rescued me from the Mountain. The couple sacrificed their lives for mine, so years later when their child, another Watcher— and a childhood friend too…” he trails off. Octavia’s face softens in understanding. “When Costia died, I offered to take her place at the Commander’s side.”

“How old were you when it happened?”

“When I was taken?” Lincoln pauses to think. “That was eleven years ago.”

Octavia raises an eyebrow. “How old are you now?” she asks bluntly, leaving no room to dodge the question.

“Twenty-four,” he admits.

She hums in contemplation. “Just a year older than Bell. I can work with that,” she notes with a wink. Lincoln flushes a little, and Octavia takes pity on him.

“I got out when I was thirteen, too,” she says, changing the subject. “First thing I did when I got out was get a tattoo of a—” 

“Butterfly," he finishes in unison with her.

“How did you…Right. Watcher.”

Lincoln hides a smile behind his coffee cup. “So why a butterfly?”

Octavia smiles at the memories that fill her mind. “It was the only time I ever ran away from the Mountain. Bellamy freaked out because he was supposed to babysit me, but eventually he had to tell Mom. A friend of hers, a Watcher, had to go out and look for me, since Shadow,” she jokes, pointing to herself.

Her face scrunches in thought. “Actually, I didn’t know it then, but it turns out she’s the mother of one of the first friends I made out here too. Anyway, she found me in a field of butterflies a couple miles away from the base. I think I was six at the time.”

Octavia pulls the sleeve of her shirt up and holds out her arm to show the tattoo on her wrist, a blue whirling design of a butterfly opening its wings. “It was the first time I’d really felt free, and when I got out for good, I wanted something to remember that feeling. Something permanent to remind myself that I’m still here.”

Lincoln cradles her hand in his, stroking the bone of her wrist with his thumb. Octavia tries to ignore the tingle of where their skin meets. It’s more than a little challenge since he keep trailing his fingertips in light lines along the back of her hand as he examines her wrist.

This time when he stares up at her, she meets his gaze head-on, and even though she feels like she can’t hide, she finds she doesn’t want to. Lincoln just looks at her and it feels different.

Octavia inches closer. “So, what about you? You have any tattoos for me to see?” she asks, dropping her voice to a seductive whisper.

Before Lincoln can answer, though, someone taps on her shoulder and interrupts the moment.

“What?!” Octavia yells, whirling around. “Can’t you see we’re having a conversation here?”

A blonde girl in jeans, a faded blue jacket, and with a backpack slung over her shoulder looks at them in apology.

“I’m sorry, this going to sound weird but, do you know me?”

*~*~*

After a few beats of nothing but stares, Clarke begins to fidget with the strap of her bag as she waits for an answer to her question. 

This may have been the wrong approach, she considers. Perhaps she should have assessed the couple's situation more carefully, judging from the irritation written all over her face and the wide-eyed wonder written all over his.

“Isn’t that question usually the other way around?” the girl with the butterfly tattoo finally snits, which granted, she’s entitled to feel since Clarke did pretty much barge in on their date.

But the guy she’s with speaks in almost reverent tones. “You're the girl,” he says in barely masked awe, and it only slightly alarms Clarke.

“Wait,  _she’s_  the girl?” the Butterfly Girl says in surprise.

“I’m Clarke,” she says, trying not to eye the way the guy stands up when she offers her hand to the girl. The last thing she wants is to get in between a lovers’ quarrel.

“Octavia,” the girl replies, standing. She shakes Clarke’s hand, then yanks her close to whisper, “And before you get any ideas, I saw him first.”

“Before  _you_  get ideas, I don’t care,” Clarke fires back, using the opportunity to flip her wrist and examine Octavia’s tattoo.

“Hey, watch it!” Octavia says, jerking her hand back.

Clarke reaches into her bag and pulls out her sketchbook. “I don’t know how I know you, but we’re connected somehow,” she says, flipping the book open to the page with her butterfly drawing.

“You’re a Watcher?” the man asks. Clarke hesitates, and he introduces himself quickly. “I’m Lincoln. I’m a Watcher too.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his own book of sketches. “I drew you this morning, talking to Octavia’s brother.”

They switch sketchbooks, and Octavia cranes over Lincoln’s elbow to see her drawing. Satisfied that she has won Octavia’s attention, perhaps enough to earn her help, Clarke diverts her eyes to Lincoln’s illustration.

On the page, she sees a startlingly good likeness of herself shaking hands with a tall, young man. Clarke can almost see the similarities in him to Octavia: they have the same strong jawline, same brown hair and they project the same strength in spirit, if Lincoln’s rendition of him is as accurate as his is of Clarke.

But that is where the similarities end. Where Octavia’s eyes are green, his are brown, and their noses slope and taper off differently at the end. His mop of curly hair and the smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks would give him a boyish look, if not for the dark seriousness in his frown and the rigid pose in his muscular frame.

Clarke wonders what she is agreeing to in this picture and why she is shaking hands with someone who is looking at her with such open distrust. She opens her mouth to voice her question, when Octavia beats her to the punch.

“What did you see in your vision of me?” she asks with a keen interest.

Clarke hesitates and considers lying, saying she Saw Octavia helping her to cement her aid, but her dad always said the truth is a better bedrock to build relationships upon, so she decides to come clean.

“I don't remember drawing it,” she admits. “I can’t remember the last two days no matter how I try. All I have to go on is this drawing and this note. That’s how I wound up here.”

She hands them the note, hoping that they can make out something from the second phrase, but their faces show the same puzzlement Clarke did. Her heart dips in disappointment.

“So you’ve been Wiped,” Octavia confirms.

“Good way to avoid other Watchers,” Lincoln points out. “They can’t track you if you don’t remember. When was the last time you had a vision?”

“This morning, but it wasn’t clear. I was in the hospital and they gave me a sedative. It’s messing with my head,” Clarke complains. “And no one will sell me any hard alcohol.”

Octavia furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “It’s two o’clock,” she says with a judgmental look.

Lincoln shakes his head with a smile. “Alcohol helps with the visions. Loosens the mind.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small bag. “Here. Eat these,” he offers, pouring a handful of nuts into her palm.

“What are they?” Clarke asks, eying them with suspicion.

“Jobi nuts.” She makes no movement to pick one up. “Hallucinogenics. They work almost as well, but they can sometimes be a little unreliable,” he clarifies.

Lincoln stops her hand before she goes to eat one. “If a pine cone tells you to eat it after you get your vision, don’t do it, okay?” he warns. “Try not to listen to any talking broomsticks either.”

Octavia sniggers. “Watchers are so weird.”

Clarke is about to pop one into her mouth, when Lincoln stiffens and shakes unsteadily next her, hitting the table and sending their paper coffee cups rolling to the ground. His hands fly to his forehead, shielding his eyes. Clarke shoves the nuts into the zippered pocket of her jacket and reaches out to help keep him balanced, but Octavia is already there, supporting his weight.

Lincoln’s eyes snap open. He grabs Octavia’s hand and pushes Clarke in front of him with a hurried shove. “We have to go. They’re coming for us down 4th,” he states, voice grim.

Clarke’s jaw drops when Octavia’s entire body vanishes before her eyes, but she has no time to react before Lincoln picks Clarke up to jump over the curb. She drops to her feet and hits the ground running, following his lead. 

“What are we running from?” she yells, turning behind her to see who or what is chasing them.

Three figures in black Division uniforms appear on the corner, scanning the street. One of them (clearly the leader, going by the headset in his ear and microphone at his mouth) points in their direction and shouts out orders. The other two respond, charging through the crowds and knocking pedestrians out of the way.

Lincoln starts to run in zig zag patterns, and Clarke follows suit, a wise decision when she hears the sound of a bullet whizzing past her, hitting the wooden cart in front of her. Her eyes widen and she speeds up to catch up to Lincoln whose long legs carry him farther with less effort.

Clarke darts to the left, then weaves between people, at one point breaking the linked hands of a couple. She looks back to apologize, but to her horror, one of the men is kneeling on the ground, cradling the other, unconscious and limp in his partner’s arms.

She stands frozen in shock that a person has been gunned down in the streets, but no one is protesting or rushing to their aid. Instead they’re just jumping out of the way to make a clearer path for the men running at them with guns drawn.

Octavia pops into view next to her and pulls her into an alley to hide. Lincoln stands next to them, leaning against the brick. Clarke pants heavily and tries to catch her breath, bending over and bracing her hands on her knees.

“That man…” Clarke begins.

“He’ll be fine,” Lincoln breathes, shaking his head. “They won’t take them. They’re Normals. He’ll just wake up with the hangover of the century in a few hours.”

Octavia quirks a questioning look in his direction. “Icers affect them more than us,” he shrugs by way of explanation.

Before Clarke can ask him to clarify how he knows that about icers, Lincoln pulls out his own gun. Her eyes widen at the sight of it, especially at the comfortable ease he wields the weapon. Guns are hard to come by even for Normals, and bullets even more so. Psychics are banned from owning them, and no one would brandish one so casually, unless they were Division or…

 _Lincoln’s with the Resistance,_  Clarke realizes and wonders why she didn’t figure it out sooner. It’s the most obvious answer to most of her questions, but it still jars her that the friendly man in front of her is aligned with such a violent group.

“I’ll draw their fire and lead them away,” he orders, oblivious to Clarke’s surprise. “Head to the Quad where there are more students and use them as cover to hide in the library.”

Not giving her a chance to refuse, Octavia pulls Clarke further down along the alley. Lincoln raises his gun and wastes two bullets in the air, racing in the opposite direction.

“I’m right behind you,” Octavia yells, already melting away before the words leave her mouth. “Just go!” her disembodied voice commands.

Clarke obeys and runs as fast as she can, avoiding the sporadic stacks of wooden crates that line the walls and the scattered empty bottles and plastic bags of trash next to the overflowing metal dumpsters.

Bullets ricochet off the brick in front of her. Clarke turns around in panic and spots one of the Division agents headed her way. She dives behind a tower of crates, searching for an exit, but to her dismay she’s trapped; a high, metal chain fence blocks her only escape route.

Determined not to go down without a fight, she picks up one of the bottles and hurls it in the direction of the agent. The glass shatters as it hits his face, slicing open his cheek, and his gun clatters to the ground. As the man grips his face in pain, Clarke grabs another bottle by the neck. She smashes the bottom, prepared to run the shards through the agent to save her life.

Then suddenly Octavia glimmers into sight, hanging off the edge of the metal fire escape up above.

She vaults from her perch, flipping backwards as she descends, and kicks out her leg toward the agent. His head snaps back from the impact, as Octavia lands in a tumble and smoothly transitions to sweep his legs from out under him. She rolls up to her feet, already running by the time the man thuds to the ground, and the echoing sound of her yell to Clarke trails behind her body, as Octavia sprints past her.

“C’mon, keep up!” she shouts. As they approach the metal fence, Octavia doesn’t bother to slow down, speeding up instead. She leaps up, pushing off the crates, then the wall and flips over the top of the fence with ease in one fast swoop.

“Really?!” Clarke complains, scaling the fence as quickly as she can. As she climbs over the top and faces the way she came, she sees the dazed Division agent get up and stagger to toward them.

Octavia reaches up and helps her as she scampers down, but just when her feet hit the ground, Clarke finds herself face to face with the angry agent, standing on the other side.

Instead of climbing the fence, however, the man steps back. His eyes blink, and Clarke must be imagining things because his pupils look like cat eyes instead. Fear overrides her curiosity when he begins to open his mouth. Octavia tugs forcefully on her jacket, and together they dash away as fast as they can.

“CLARKE, COVER YOUR EARS!” she hears Octavia shout, before the man emits an unnatural, ear-splitting scream in their direction.

Glass bottles explode in a line on the ground before the high-pitched soundwave of pain slams into Clarke. She staggers to her knees, clamping her hands over her ears, but they’re of little use to block out the sound. Clarke falls to the ground, and Octavia follows, body contorting in pain and clutching her ears as well. Octavia’s nose starts to bleed. Clarke can feel her own blood thundering in her head. Her body starts to convulse, and soon the anguishing pain is the only thing her mind can process. Her head feels like it’s about to explode. She starts to see black spots creeping into her edges of her vision. All she wants is for the agony to stop.

And then blissfully it does.

Clarke hears a crash of wood in the distance and looks up to see two young students, both wearing shirts with the words ‘Respect Existence or Expect Resistance’ boldly written on the front. At their feet is the unconscious agent, covered in pieces of wood, presumably the result of toppled over crates, but they ignore him and shout, motioning their arms at her.

“GO! RUN!” they call.

Clarke needs no further urging. Fighting through the dizziness, she helps Octavia to her feet and grabs her hand, pulling her into the throng of students. Using the crowd as cover as Lincoln instructed, they move with the mob as they march across the Quad, until they get close enough to make a break for the library.

The chilled rush of recycled air greets them as they stumble through the door. Clarke cranes her head up, drinking in the cool relief. From the entrance of the library, she can see all five levels, each one with its own metal railing and frosted glass panes below to prevent people from falling into the foyer below.

“Up there.” Octavia points to the second floor, running for the stairs. “The study rooms.”

Clarke follows her lead through the maze of bookshelves, assuming she knows where she’s going. Sure enough, they slip into one of the private rooms to hide.

Octavia goes to the window to spy on the movements of the people outside below. When Clarke joins her, she spots the lead Division agent, arms whipping back and forth in frustration, yelling into his headset.

“Lovejoy,” Octavia snarls.

“You know that guy?” Clarke asks, catching her breath. The nausea from the attack is slowly leaching out of her, but the adrenaline is still pumping through her veins.

“I know he’s an ass,” Octavia mutters under her breath, eyes still on the scene below.

Clarke peers across the Quad to the entrance of the alley they escaped from. More uniformed guards, campus authorities this time, dump the unconscious agent onto the grass, and the two students who helped Clarke and Octavia are taken away in cuffs. Guilt stabs Clarke in the chest.

“What the hell was that thing?” she asks.

“The boogeymen,” Octavia replies absentmindedly, staring out the window.

“What?”

She finally turns away from the window to face Clarke. A small trickle of blood from Octavia’s nose drips to her lip. “Sorry, that’s what a friend of mine calls them. He’s kinda obsessed with the First Age,” she explains, touching her lip. “They were Bleeders.”

Clarke’s eyebrows shoot to her forehead in disbelief. “ _THOSE_  are Bleeders?”

“You’ve never seen one before?” Octavia asks, spreading streaks of red around her chin and mouth with the edge of her sleeve.

Clarke digs into her bag and hands her a paper napkin to wipe the blood properly from her face.

“Never up close. I’ve only heard of them,” she replies. A shiver runs down her spine as she replays in her head what she just saw. “I thought Bleeders just used icers, not…whatever it was that they were doing with their voices.”

“Mt. Weather made them that way so Division agents can control them and use them as capture teams,” Octavia replies with a grave look. “And they were looking for you.”

*~*~*

“Octavia, NO.”

Clarke stands awkwardly to the side and watches as the Blake siblings duke it out over the offer she’s made.

“Bellamy, all we have to do help her find out why Division is after her.”

“She’s trouble,” he all but booms and turns to Clarke, glaring at her like she’s the enemy and it’s her fault that Octavia told her about their mother. “No offense, but you are.”

Clarke tries not to be affronted by the accusation, but her annoyance simmers at the surface. Octavia wasn’t exaggerating when she said her brother wouldn’t like it, but this idea wasn’t even Clarke’s.

Octavia is perfectly capable of getting into trouble all by herself, and from what Clarke’s seen, she handles herself pretty well too. Part of that probably comes from Bellamy, but she can’t help but feel a small prickle of indignation on Octavia’s behalf. They’re all adults, and maybe in another situation, she’d find Bellamy’s over-protectiveness admirable, but right now it’s standing in the way of finding her father. Lincoln’s drawing seems further and further away from reality every second.

“I’ve already had four people ask me about you, got my ass kicked twice, and now you’re saying Bleeders are involved?” Bellamy throws his arms up in the air. “We don’t need that kind of heat, Octavia. She shouldn’t even be here.”

“Bell, she can help us get Mom back!” she exclaims.

 _“EVERYONE_  is looking for her,” he fires back.

Octavia advances on Bellamy. “ _You_  said we’d do this on our terms.  _You_  said you had a plan from all that time you worked security.  _You_  said we need a Watcher.” She punctuates each sentence with a hard poke on her brother’s chest. He swats her hand away and distances himself even further away from where Clarke is standing.

“Well,  _she’s_  a Watcher,” Octavia continues, gesturing at her. “We help her, and she can help us break into the Mountain and get Mom out safely.”

Bellamy gears up to launch a counter argument, and finally, Clarke has had enough. She marches right up to Bellamy and stares him straight in the eye.

“If you don’t want my help, that’s fine. I can walk right out right now,” she bluffs. “But if you help me now, I’ll help you, even if I don’t get all the answers I need in the end. It can be that simple.”

“Just that simple, huh?” he echoes, dry skepticism tainting every word.

Clarke angles her head closer to Bellamy and away from Octavia. “Your sister seems very determined to find a Watcher,” she says in a lower voice. “Do you really think I am the greater of the two evils here, compared to the Resistance?” His face scrunches up like he’s eaten a sour lemon. “At least with me, you get to come along and make sure she’s safe.”

“C’mon, Bell, it’s  _MOM_ ,” Octavia whines behind her.

Clarke merely raises an eyebrow and shrugs her shoulders. “That’s my offer. Take it or leave it,” she declares, holding out her hand.

Bellamy pauses and stares her with a distrustful look, before shaking her hand at last.

 _Looks like Lincoln was right after all_.

“It would probably help if we have something to go on other than just Clarke. Gotta last name or is it just ‘Division’s Most Wanted’?” Bellamy snarks.

Clarke rolls her eyes at his immaturity, but gives his question careful consideration. Since she walked through the door and was met with hostility and mistrust, Clarke has been reevaluating her stance on complete truthfulness. She doesn’t want to believe that either Bellamy or Octavia would sell her out to Division if questioned. They seem to be decent, if not desperate, people, with a healthy dose of over-protective paranoia on Bellamy’s part. Clarke tries not to judge; they’ve seen the inside of the base at Mt. Weather where she’s only heard horror stories. She doesn’t know their life story.

That said, there’s no telling what people will do or say under torture or duress, and there’s no harm in placing safeguards against the worst case scenario. Plausible deniability is the only protection she can offer them. One falsehood for their own good won’t hurt.

“Clarke Walters,” she lies.

“Well, Clarke Walters, what do you remember?”

“Beyond what Octavia told you? Just the basics. I don’t remember where I live. Somewhere in this city, I’m sure. I remember my mom. She was a surgeon, but she died a year ago,” she answers truthfully. “My dad’s an engineer and a Watcher like me. He was alive last time I remember, but I think he might be dead too,” she adds, giving voice to her worst fear.

“You think or you know?”

“Why else would I be alone?” she says, disheartened by her own question. “He would’ve come to get me by now, right?”

“You’re a Watcher. Have any visions of where we can start?”

Clarke opens her sketchbook and searches past the pictures of the fox, the lock and pick, and the atom molecule until she lands on the one Octavia recognized on their walk to the apartment.

“We go here next,” she says, holding up a picture of an electric sign. The figure of a small rocket under the words ‘The Dropship’ outlined in glowing lights has always been one of her favorites, and Octavia’s happy excitement when she saw it only confirmed her certainty that her visions are leading her in the right direction.

As Clarke has now come to expect, though, Bellamy has the opposite reaction as his sister.

“It HAD to be Raven and Monty, didn’t it?” he groans in despair.

Octavia and Clarke share a snigger at his expense. Mocking Bellamy’s frustration must be a universal reaction, and though she doesn’t recognize the names, it’s good to know whom she’s meeting tomorrow.

“Fine, we start in the morning,” he sighs. “But Octavia and I are bunking together. You get the couch.”

“Rude. She’s our guest,” Octavia protests.

“It’s fine, Octavia,” Clarke reassures. “I need some privacy anyway.” She pulls out the handful of Jobi nuts that she had stuffed in her pocket before the chase and a pencil from her bag. Octavia nods in understanding.

“C’mon, big brother. Let the Watcher do her thing,” she says, pushing him into the bedroom and shutting the door.

Clarke grins at the faint sound of their bickering, and a tiny pang of nostalgia, or something very close to it, pulls at her heart. She’s always been an only child, but there’s something familiar in their sibling interactions that she recognizes as her own, even though that makes no sense.

With a sigh of relief, Clarke bounces on the couch, testing its firmness. It’s not too bad of a punishment, if that is what Bellamy was aiming for, because the couch is quite comfortable and Clarke prefers to the quiet and solitude of her own space. She’s grateful that Octavia was persistent enough to wear her brother down and that she has a roof over her head for the night. And even if the meaning of the word ‘safe’ doesn’t match the feeling settling in her bones, she has the comfort that they have a plan and the fact that she isn’t alone to hang her hat and hope on.

Just thinking about the whirlwind of events causes the tiredness to catch up to her, and exhaustion from the day’s panicked fear and running is starting to kick in. Clarke stifles a yawn and sits upright to keep from falling asleep.

There is still work to be done, one more thing before she’ll let herself rest.

Clarke gazes down on the open sketchbook lying on the cushion next to her and traces along lines of the logo of The Dropship.  _Tomorrow,_  she reassures herself.  _I’m coming, Dad._

The Jobi nuts call her attention, and she eyes them with suspicion once more.

“Here’s hoping there aren’t any talking brooms in this apartment,” Clarke mutters to herself, popping a few nuts into her mouth. She chews on them slowly, noting the slight buttery aftertaste, and waits patiently for the visions to appear.

When the first image starts to flash, she grabs the pencil, opens a new page, and begins to sketch.

 

END ACT I


	4. Act II: Visions and Revelations (1/3)

 

 

  

The outline of the Dropship logo flickers on and off before fritzing again. Tiny sparks shoot out from the wiring, zapping Raven’s hand.

She curses with a yelp, snatching her fingers away and shaking her hand in pain. A little swirl of smoke and the fizzle of burnt metal mock Raven for her efforts, and she glares down at the broken light.

Just once, it’d be nice if the universe actually gave her a break and stopped shitting all over her life.

A yawn escapes her mouth. Raven wonders if maybe she should have taken those few hours to sleep instead of pulling her second all-nighter this week. If she wasn’t already tired from all the extra jobs she picked up, it wouldn’t be so bad, but exhaustion has already started to creep into the ache of her back and knee, and it’s only ten o’clock.

The raging success from last night’s Mardi Gras theme night was easily their best turnout yet. With another couple of nights like that, the Dropship’s reputation will quickly cement itself as  _the_  venue to be— and no one would ever guess that two teenagers were the wizards behind the curtain.

 _Finn and Jasper would be proud,_  she notes, and the twinge she feels is only a tiny pinprick of hurt to her heart.

Every victory has a price, though, and theirs is a trail of property damage in various parts of the bar left in the wake of the night’s festivities. The wreckage is so bad, they've been forced to cancel the rest of their Unity Day events, which is a chunk of their revenue out the window. Raven shudders to think about the amount of cleaner the staff had to use in the bathrooms. The past eight hours have been a marathon of repairs to get the bar back to normal. The broken sign is the last of it. It's probably the simplest to fix, but it’s also the most annoying.

_How the fuck did someone manage to melt plastic beads so thoroughly into the wiring of their logo?_

Raven is in the middle of drafting a strongly worded speech on the need for staff to keep a better eye on drunken customers, when she hears the jingle of the door. “Can’t people read the damn sign?” she mutters under her breath.

“We’re closed!” she yells from her seat at one of the tables, not even bothering to look up from the task at hand.

“Raaaaaaven,” Octavia’s voice sings out from the bar’s entrance. Her head snaps up at the call. “I have a favor to ask.”

Octavia peeks her head into the bar with a hopeful smile. Raven can’t help but snort good-naturedly at her feigned innocence. It’s never just one favor with Octavia, but she will admit that it’s always an adventure. And since it’s Unity Day, Raven can pretty much guess what this favor is.

“No, no, no. Absolutely not, missy,” she rattles off, returning to work on the broken sign. “I am not making you another fake ID. If you want to drink so badly, do it here with us. You know Monty will make your favorite, anyway.”

“FAKE ID?!” Bellamy’s voice rises at the end of the question, indignant with disapproval. Raven’s grip tightens on her screwdriver instinctively at the sound.

 _Octavia can’t be that stupid_ , she reasons.

But no, apparently she  _is_  that stupid, because when she looks up, Octavia, her jack-ass brother, and a female stranger are walking up to her table. With each step he takes, Raven feels her blood pressure rising at Bellamy’s gall that he’d even dare to put one foot into her and Monty’s home. Her face darkens with fury when he stands before her.  _This day just keeps getting better and better._

“Get. Out.”

“Raven, wait.” Raven almost throws her screwdriver at him, but Bellamy’s hands fly up, and she holds back. He’d only knock it aside, anyway, so she settles for picturing darts flying at his head.

“You aren’t welcome here,” she grinds out when he opens his mouth to speak, pointing with the screwdriver for emphasis. Then she faces Octavia with a glare. “You know better than to bring him here.”

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Bellamy mutters.

“You’re damn straight,” she agrees and goes back to her work. She twists the screwdriver forcefully, then winces when she overdoes it. The tip slips from the grooves in the screw, stripping the metal and rendering it useless.  _Damnit. Another thing to fix._  

She hopes that by ignoring him, he’ll turn around and take his sorry ass out of her bar. But Bellamy remains as stupid as ever and decides to press the issue.

“We need your help,” he tries again.

Raven fixes him with a scornful look. “And why should I help you?”

“We can pay you,” he offers.

“I don’t need your money,” she breezes, pulling out her wallet. “I’m the best goddamn Shifter on the planet.”

She extracts one of the blank pieces of paper the size of a regular bill, and with barely a thought and a shake of her hand, she instantly transforms it to a perfect replica of real currency. It’s flawless, right down to the holographic strip that gets most Shifters caught because the government’s finally gotten around to consulting other Psychics on anti-counterfeit measures. She gets it right, though. Raven Reyes is no amateur. 

“I have everything I could possibly need,” she declares, tossing the money carelessly on the table.

“You know that Shifts don’t last forever,” Bellamy says flatly. “It’s just a trick of the light. Not even you can keep that up forever.”

Raven scowls at his point.

It  _is_  too bad the money is too complicated to Shift for real. If she could Shift money permanently, she wouldn’t be doing their own repairs and picking up odd jobs to keep them stocked with food and liquor. She and Monty wouldn’t be slumming it in this area of town, and they definitely wouldn’t be scrounging for cash to pay off the authorities to look the other way and leave the bar alone.

But he’s wrong that Shifts don’t last forever—not that she’d ever share that detail with him.

“If you’re so good, why are you here bumming around in a crappy bar?” the blonde girl chimes in, reminding Raven of her presence.

“Excuse me, Princess?” Raven can’t believe the rudeness of some people, but then she notices that the girl is wearing what must be one of Bellamy’s old shirts; it hangs too loosely off her frame to be hers, and it doesn’t have an ironic saying or logo like all of Octavia’s shirts. “Nice girlfriend you’ve got there, Bellamy. You sure know how to pick ‘em.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” the girl scoffs, and well, okay. At least she isn’t completely without common sense. “I’m Clarke,” she says, holding out her hand.

“She needs your help,” Bellamy explains. Raven goes back to ignoring him.

Instead, she eyes Clarke up and down, sizing her up with suspicion. (She still shakes her hand, though, because Raven raised herself up to be a civilized person with actual manners.) 

“Nice start, making fun of my favorite place in the world, Clarke,” she says coolly, tongue clicking on the hard sound of the K of her name.

“Really? This place looks kinda…bare.” 

Clarke’s right. The tablecloths, chairs, and tables are the best they can afford but are simple in design. The carpet is thin and fraying at the edges. The grey wallpaper is drab and unappealing. Framed posters of white paper line the walls, and a few pairs of crossed sticks hang randomly near the bar. By all accounts, the Dropship looks more like an unfinished renovation.

But that’s only because Raven designed it to be that way.

“This _place_ is the best underground bar you will ever see. You just lack the imagination,” she drawls, slinging back in her chair. With a flourish of her hands, the entire room transforms, color spilling like paint onto a blank canvas.

In a matter of seconds, the bar becomes a perfect imitation of a Victorian mansion, an exact replica of an old romance movie Finn made her watch years ago. The wallpaper shimmers into a warm yellow, and the chairs and tables take on the look of carved mahogany of the Victorian era. White lace delicately covers the tablecloths. The plates change from cheap plastic to fine china fit for afternoon tea. The carpet turns into a gorgeous rug, and the posters transform into framed oil paintings, the sticks on the wall into gleaming sabers of the regiment of the time.

Then with a snap of her fingers, the scene changes into a Western saloon. The furniture morphs into rickety wooden chairs and tables, and the carpet transforms into wooden slats. A dusty tan takes over the wallpaper. The sabers convert to rifles, the oil paintings into Wanted ads for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The china plates become metal, and the tablecloths take on a checkered red pattern.

Raven snaps her fingers again, and the Western saloon becomes a disco club. The Bee Gees and John Travolta take the place of cowboys and robbers, and the tablecloths become a satiny white. The walls become black, as the light overhead spins into a shimmering mirror ball, casting reflections of light all over the room. Best of all, Raven changes the floor into white squares with colorful panels lighting up from below, cycling through in random patterns of red, blue and green. (The research for that particular theme has been one of the most fun nights she, Octavia and Monty had in a long time, making fun of all the pants and sideburns as they twirled her around.)   

Clarke’s jaw literally drops. Raven’s smug grin grows. “I could do this for hours,” she says with a lazy flick of her wrist, sending another ripple of illusions through the bar.

“That’s…”

“Crazy, right?” Octavia cuts in, finally taking command of the conversation. “She really can, too. You should see this place on trivia night.”

She kneels next to Raven, down at her level, and stills her hands. The mirage drops away like a house of cards, restoring the bar its neutral state. Octavia clasps both hands and brings them down to rest on the table.

“Raven, please just listen?”

She asks the question with so much seriousness in those damn puppy dog eyes. Raven really wishes Octavia was someone she could say no to.  But when someone saves your life, you pretty much owe them for forever in Raven’s book, and especially given…well.

“All right,” she says with a belabored sigh. “What do you need?”

Clarke digs around in her bag, searching for something as she speaks. “My mind’s been Wiped, and people—”

“—Division agents,” Octavia supplies.

“—Division agents are coming after me,” she finishes, fishing out a clear bag holding a chess piece. “I need to find out who Wiped me so I can find out why.”

Raven’s jaw clicks as she considers the request, shifting a quick glance at Octavia. She shakes her head with the tiniest of motions in answer to Raven’s unspoken question. Satisfied, Raven directs her attention back to Clarke.

“That’s a pretty tall order,” she notes, letting her skepticism show. Raven picks up her pliers, this time to fiddle with the wiring. Talk of Mt. Weather always unsettles her, and mending things with her hands never fails to have a calming effect on her. “If the Mountain’s after you, they’ll find you.”

“Not if I get answers first.” Clarke fixes her with a determined look, and if sheer will were all it took to fight off Division, Raven believes this girl could do it. Too bad reality sucks so much. And speaking of sucking…

Raven cranes her neck and eyes Bellamy in the back, wisely shutting up in the corner. “Since when are you all about standing up to Division?” she mocks crassly. “Don’t tell me you’re actually joining a team now, Blake.”

Bellamy uncrosses his arms and steps forward, rubbing his neck. “Look, I am sorry about Finn—”

“ _Don’t_  say his name,” she hisses.

“Raven,” he pleads. His stupid, fake apologetic face sets her off, temper flaring within her. Raven drops her tools, abandoning the broken sign to let him have it.

“If you had just helped someone other than yourself for once, instead of throwing out that radio,” she rants, “we could have all escaped that night!” Octavia winces at the volume of her shout. “They could have lived!”

Bellamy squirms at the truth, and Raven goes in for the kill.

“And I,” she reminds him, swinging her leg out from underneath the table, “could have spent the rest of my life without having to deal with this!”

Clarke sucks in an audible breath when she stands. Raven wants to smack something, having momentarily forgotten in her anger that Clarke is there, and that this is all new to her. Despite the fact that her brace is— _what did Monty call it? Oh right_ — the fucking  _Mona Lisa_  of braces, all people ever see is a paralyzed leg and strapped on pieces of metal. Raven hates the pity.

She wants to berate Clarke for it, until she realizes it’s not pity in the girl’s eyes, but real interest…and weirdly not directed at her brace. She follows Clarke’s eye line and sees that her eyes are locked onto Raven’s chest, and well, Raven does have a rockin’ body. She puffs up a little in pride.

“See something you like, Princess?” she asks with a wink.

In lieu of an answer, Clarke reaches out and wraps her fingers around the metal bird around her neck. Raven rears back, freaking out.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she asks angrily, snatching back her necklace. “You always go around grabbing things from people you don’t know?”

Raven tucks her necklace under her shirt, hiding it from view. “You need better friends, Octavia.”

“It’s okay. She did it to me too. At least it wasn’t your arm,” she says, shrugging. “Another vision, Clarke?”

Raven's eyes widen. “Well, that explains a lot. Watchers are always so tunnel-Visioned," she jokes.

She would know. She can’t think of a single time her mother wasn’t reaching for the bottle to induce vision after vision of the future.  

To her credit, though, Clarke looks sincere in her contrite expression, as if she didn’t even realize what she was doing. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “I’m sorry about your friends too, and you’re right. You don’t know me. But I need your help."

She reaches into her bag of tricks again and pulls out a sketchbook to try to close the deal. Raven is skeptical anything will work, but then Clarke opens to a page with her necklace on it. Her little piece of twisted metal in the shape of a bird, given to her by the boy who gave her the only real family she’s ever known. It’s an exact copy, down to the actual size. The rendering gleams brightly, small and delicate on the page, against the backdrop of a black bird, a raven’s head with its long beak and piercing eyes. 

“My dad is missing, Division is after me, and all I know right now is that I’m supposed to be here with you, because I drew this last night,” Clarke says. “Please, help me?”

The plea in her voice— the way it goes up at the end, just short of cracking in desperation— tugs at something in Raven’s chest and breaks off pieces of her resolve. Maybe it’s the way she says ‘Dad’ like Raven says ‘Finn,’ like home is a person not a place, and without him, she’s a vagrant, untethered and displaced. Maybe it’s the worry and love that shine in her eyes, the kind children  _should_  have when they speak of their parents, instead of the empty, bitter feeling Raven feels for her own mother.

Or maybe, today she just feels like being a goddamn rebel, because she’s tired of the Mountain always winning.

“Fine,” she caves. “And let me guess. Going by that piece, you also need—”

“A Sniff,” Octavia finishes with a nod. “We need Monty.”

Raven cranes her head up at the ceiling and listens as the muffled sounds of Monty's music filters from upstairs.

Yep. She definitely should have taken that nap.

*~*~*

Monty crouches down at eye level with the table and stares down the barrel of the telescope on his desk. The curved glass is almost green on the larger end, and worn strips of leather encase the tube. His hand itches to touch it and feel its texture.

The artifact is old. The genuine article from the 1800’s, Miller had assured him (or at least that was what the label on the display case said) and worth the pretty penny Monty paid him to break into the museum and “borrow” it for short while. He only gets to have it for five more hours, and Monty really should get on with it, but he wants to savor this feeling first. Objects this old are awesome because they always hold the keys to mysteries. Monty loves a good mystery. 

In the background, Gilbert and Sullivan’s  _Pirates of Penzance_  sings through the speakers in the living room, drifting through the open door into his study. Monty hums along to the tune and lets the music from that century set the stage for zeroing in on the right time period. Every little bit helps when delving that many centuries into the past, and it takes his utmost concentration to ensure his Sniff-o-visions (and okay, yeah, he needs a better name for that) don’t overwhelm him.

Sniffing out the historical details for Raven to replicate in the bar has been Monty’s M.O. from the start, but the real key to their success is that, unlike most Sniffs, Monty can use other senses in addition to Sight when he falls into a vision.

He can’t use all five; the most he’s been able to use at once is three. And it can be a pain. Sometimes he wishes he couldn’t describe with pin-point accuracy what the streets smelled like in 15th century London. Other times he wishes he could use all five senses at once in a vision, just so he could know everything about what it’s like to experience zero-gravity and walk on the moon.

His parents swore him to secrecy, warned him to hide the depths of his abilities lest someone use it against him— or worse, rat him out to Division. Not even Raven knows about it.

But the neat trick has come in handy in creating the most realistic theme nights ever. The Dropship’s gimmick of rotating First Age theme nights keeps everyone guessing what the next party will be, and since Monty’s best at picking up smell and sound, it translates to unique dishes and unexpected surprises in the music that keep the customers coming back for more.

The next theme night needs to be as big a hit as last night’s Mardi Gras (though hopefully with less property damage this time), and the idea of a Pirate Night will be just the ticket. As long as he gets the details right. With a pen and paper next to him to jot down the notes, he pulls off his gloves, cracks his fingers, and gets to work.

At the first touch of his fingers, Monty closes his eyes and—

 _The modern world falls away, buildings deconstructed and the cities receding into more primitive villages. The Boat Clans gain a hold of the artifact, and then a flash of light, bombs flaring in the night_   _—_

The images come at him fast, and he scans backwards past scene after scene, rewinding through centuries of history like those VHS tapes that were so popular in the late 20th century. The bombs put the timeline right at the end of the First Age, which gives him another two centuries to go…

He brings the telescope to his nose and Sniffs, concentrates on finding the smell of sea salt air to trigger a more accurate time frame. As his mind falls backwards into visions, Monty tries to soak in every detail.

_—*SPLASH*_

_The clear blue skies and glittering waters of the vast open sea paint swaths of blue and green. The view of the horizon is unmistakable, and the deep blue hues only partially mask the world swimming below_   _—_

 _They definitely need to have blue for the carpet_ , he scratches out in his notes. _Or maybe the wallpaper_. He’ll let Raven decide, though he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to translate to her just how beautiful of a sight the vision offered him.

For once, the fantastic illusions on celluloid film pale in comparison to the reality of the past. The ocean was once so beautiful to behold, not the murky grey thing it has become after centuries of industrialization and war. A bitter thought crosses his mind at how mankind keeps on screwing things up in the same ways over and over again.

_—*BOOM*_

_Black cannons roll into position through little holes in the side, and lit fuses lead to explosions as cannonballs fire into the pirate ship, sinking it easily_   _—_

He smiles as he writes down -  _oh yes, definitely using the cannonball thing for the music_ \- and he wonders if Raven can hook up some sort of pyrotechnics as a finale for the night. Monty pauses, then scribbles an extra note to keep track of the fire hazards and to make sure to set aside money in case they need to pay off the fire department again to keep it off the books.

_—*CRASH*_

_The shouts of the pirates are drowned out by the toppling of their mast, and the black flag with skull and bones flutters into the wind. They are a rag tag crew manning a much less formidable vessel than the Admiral’s ship_   _—and does that guy really have a peg leg and a parrot on his shoulder? Seriously? That was an actual thing?_   _—_

Giddy with laughter at the sheer ridiculousness, Monty turns on instinct to crack a Long John Silver joke at Jasper.

And then he remembers Jasper’s not there.

Finn and Jasper aren’t there, and the reminder of that reality knocks the breath of out of him, even though it really shouldn’t.

Monty and Raven try their best, but the specter of Finn hangs over almost all her actions, and Jasper is like a phantom limb. It’s already been a year, but he can’t break the habit of turning to his left. The acute ache of their absence comes at the most unexpected moments, and he still hasn’t figured out a way to let the pain scab over.

Shaking away the maudlin thoughts, Monty tries to focus on the telescope again, but thoughts of Jasper and Finn distract him. Images of his own memories shuffle in with the telescope’s Psychic imprints, and he can’t get past the Second Age, right when the Sky People’s first dropship fell. All he sees are the old Boat Clans with their primitive nets.

He sighs, dropping the telescope on his desk, and slouches back into his seat.

All of this— the bar, the research nights, even the insanity like they had last night— this was their dream, conjured up on late nights, cramped together on Finn’s couch while watching old holovids of movies. Everyone in the Mountain dreams of a better life, but especially kids like Monty and Jasper, who became wards of the State by the age of ten. The Collins family had all but adopted them, and the bond between the three of them was as real as any blood tie. When Raven joined in the mix, it was game over.

The four of them were a family, cobbled together from broken homes, two halves of Jasper-Monty and Raven-Finn making a better whole. They were all supposed to share this life. Monty just doesn’t know how to function without his brothers in everything but name. 

Part of him doesn’t want to. Jasper’s been a part of almost every memory Monty has, and it feels selfish that for the rest of his life, Monty is going to make new ones without him. In the scrapbook of photographs in his mind, everyone else is going to grow older, but Jasper and Finn are just going to stop in their teens.

And somewhere in the hidden corners of his heart, Monty’s terrified that someday his memory will fade too, and then they will really be gone.

He doesn’t want to forget.         

Monty’s eye drifts to the top drawer of his desk. His hand flexes against the siren call in his mind, but before he can stop himself, he’s already pulling open the desk drawer, temptation making him take another hard turn to the left.

There, next to his father’s pen and his mother’s glasses sit Jasper’s goggles. Locked inside the brown rubber trim and clear plastic are visions of the past. His past, where he can hang onto Jasper’s stupid grin, hear Raven’s carefree laugh, find comfort in Finn’s welcoming smile, and see a reflection of himself that doesn’t exist anymore, a face that he misses.

But first that means reliving the most recent events.

He shouldn’t do it.  It will hurt. The wounds are too fresh.

He’s already done this too many times.

Yet even as Monty’s saying these things to himself, he reaches in. His hand traces along the black elastic band, plunging him headlong into the vision and—

_*BANG*_

_“Jasper!”_

_Monty doesn’t recognize his own strangled scream when he watches himself doubling back to his fallen friend._

_A small cluster of wet, red spots blooms in the center of Jasper’s grey shirt, too many than necessary to take down his skinny frame. It’s a ruthless execution. Monty swallows against the coppery smell of blood._

_“Run,” is all Jasper says, more of a weak exhalation than a word, and Monty sees himself look up only when he hears the shot of another gun._

_Finn’s body stumbles when the bullet hits his back, but he keeps on moving, carrying a barely conscious Raven in his arms. He soldiers on, staggering only when another hit lands. He doesn’t let her fall._

_*CLASH*_

_Jasper rattles against the metal cage next to him. Monty hears himself begging Dr. Tsing to stop, to take him instead. He closes his eyes when she ignores him, but he can’t shut out Raven’s screams in pain, the whirring of the drill into flesh and bone._

_“Monty,” she calls. He cries in frustration, unable to make it stop._

_“Monty!” she shouts again, and he’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’s so, so sorry._

“MONTY!” Raven yells his name. The slam of a heavy book dropping onto his desk breaks him from his trance. He has to blink to adjust to the sight of Raven’s worried face, close in front of him.  

“Hey, hey. Come back to me,” she whispers until he really sees her. ”Hey there.” Her voice is gentle as she cups his cheek, wipes away tears he didn’t know had fallen. “They can’t get us here. We’re safe.”

“We’re safe,” he repeats, cracking with a strain in his voice that can only come from screaming. For how long this time, he doesn’t know, and how did he wind up crouched on the floor in front of his desk?

Monty pulls back, embarrassed at being caught in such a moment of vulnerability. “Sorry,” he mumbles, grabbing Raven’s offered hand to pull up himself to his feet.

She picks up Jasper’s goggles and sighs. “Oh, Monty. Why?”

Times like these, he wishes Raven wouldn’t mother-hen him so much just because he’s younger. “I just…I had to see them again,” he says, at once both defensive and helpless at his predicament.

“Monty,” Raven says again.

He looks away, at anything but the sad, recriminating look in her eyes. He catches sight of Octavia behind her, and then to his surprise, spots Octavia’s brother and a girl hovering near the door. Utter confusion replaces any embarrassment he might feel about an audience witnessing his little episode.

_Raven Reyes let Bellamy Blake into their home…and he’s not missing a vital organ, or even sporting a black eye?_

Monty must still be dreaming. He turns back at Raven and raises an eyebrow.

She glances over her shoulder and shrugs. “It’s cool. He’s just helping her.”

Octavia steps forward, motioning for her friend to follow. “Monty, this is Clarke,” she introduces.

“Clarke Walters,” the hesitant girl says, concern written all over her face.

He straightens, steadying himself, and plasters on a smile that almost reaches his eyes. “Monty Green,” he says, shaking her hand. “What can I do for you?”

“Raven said you can help with something,” she begins, “but first are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Monty dissembles, with a more convincing grin. ”Just a little caught up in the past, you know?”

Clarke gives an inscrutable look and makes a decision. “This isn’t a good time. We can come back.”

“Hold up, Princess,” Bellamy’s harsh voice cuts in. Monty tries not to throw something at his head. “We finally get Raven to help us, and now you want to walk away?”

Clarke whirls on him. “Can’t you see he’s upset? That was a textbook panic attack. We can wait an hour ‘til he’s sure he’s okay.”

“We can’t wait, Clarke. Division is after you, and they have agents, drones, and who knows what else searching the city. Every second we waste is another second closer to us getting caught,” Bellamy shoots back.

Monty catches an appraising look on Raven’s face. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“Clarke here got Wiped, and Division is after her. They are trying to find out why,” she explains as Bellamy and Clarke continue to argue. Monty can’t help his wide-eyed surprise that Raven would help out when Division is involved.

“We need a Sniff to get started, and you’re the best around,” Octavia flatters, and a genuine smile finally makes its way onto his face.

“He’s here. Ask him,” Bellamy orders.

Monty scowls in irritation. “Can you please stop talking about me like I’m not in the room?” he snaps. “I’m a person, not a Ouija board.”

Clarke shoots him an apologetic look. Monty wants to tell her that it’s not directed at her, but he suspects it wouldn’t matter. Part of him wants to help her just for that.

“Clarke, what do you need?” he asks, focusing only on her.

“My dad is missing,” she starts. “If I’m right, this chess piece will lead me to either him or whatever it is Division wants with me.” He looks down at the chess piece she’s rolling around her hand, fidgeting with it like a nervous habit. “I’m just not sure what you’ll see, and I don’t want to add to whatever you just saw that caused that reaction.”

Her point gives him pause. Monty cocks his head, trying to puzzle out the truth behind the situation he’s looking at. Despite her reluctance to ask, Monty can spot the masked desperation in her request. He doesn’t question how Clarke knows it’s Division that he saw in his visions (though again, it’s a small modicum of surprise that Raven didn’t sock Bellamy in the face for spilling their secrets to a stranger).

The fact that she’s Octavia’s friend wins her points, but then he notices Octavia herself. Her heel taps a jumpy rhythm, a tick he recognizes for when she wants something but is trying to tamp down her desire from showing. Whatever this is, it’s important to Octavia too.

He looks to Raven, but she’s staring at Clarke again, her curious assessment replaced with actual respect, and that barometer, more than anything else, is what convinces Monty in the end.

“I can do it,” he decides, holding out the hand without the glove. 

“You’re sure?” Clarke asks again.

“Positive,” Monty replies. “You’d be surprised what things I can stomach, especially living around this ray of sunshine.”

“Oh shut up, nerd,” Raven fires back with a laugh. “Your crap is messier than mine.”

Clarke places the black pawn in his palm. It barely grazes his skin before the images start to flood his mind.

— _*snick*_

_The metal key snicks as it turns inside the lock. Clarke places the pawn down in a locker. She reaches into her bag and holds up with a small tube with a syringe filled with some sort of black liquid. Wrapping it in a shirt, she puts it inside the locker along with some random articles of clothing, then drops the chess piece into her bag and shuts the locker door. The number reads 4100 on the outside, and Clarke turns the key again, locking it again._

_*laughter*_

_Clarke walks by a group of students laughing at a table. Plans and designs clutter the entire surface of the table, supplies scattered in haphazard piles along the walls of a large, empty warehouse. She ducks by a sign that says, ‘Ark University Art Department,’ as more students build the skeletons of six large floats, already taking shape. In the far corner, Monty recognizes the row of lockers._

_* “May we meet again” *_

_Monty watches as a tall boy with sad eyes hugs Clarke, handing her the pawn and the tube. Clarke practically disappears into his arms, and she whispers the words back_   _—_

Monty breaks the connection and opens his eyes. Clarke looks at him with cautious hope.

“Do you remember a black guy, broad shoulders, about as tall as Bellamy?” he asks.

Clarke frowns, sneaking a glance at Octavia. “Did he have a shaved head, with a tattoo on his neck?”

“No,” Monty answers, curious at the way his friend perks up Clarke’s question. “I didn’t see any tattoos, and he definitely had hair.”

“Then no,” Clarke replies, shaking her head.

“Well, he is the one who gave that to you, along with a syringe of something. Then you put it in a storage locker over in the big warehouse by Ark U. Chances are, if you don’t remember him or that syringe, that’s what was so important to Wipe you for.”

“The warehouse…That’s where they're building all the floats for the parade, right?” Octavia clarifies.

“Yeah. Clarke was there when they were already done with the frames.” Monty does the mental calculations. “So I’d say no more than a week ago?”

“The university is near the hospital I was at,” Clarke offers. “Were there any labels on the syringe? Any clue what it was?”

He shrugs. “Not sure what it was. It was filled with some sort of black liquid.”

“That’s probably why Division is after her,” Bellamy observes, and Monty nods in agreement.

“What about the guy?” Clarke asks. “Was he a Normal or Psychic or…”

“Couldn’t tell. But…” Monty hedges, unsure how much to divulge with an audience given the intimate moment, before settling for a simple version. “He seemed really worried about you.”

“How do you know?”

He pauses for a beat. “He said some phrase, ‘May we meet again,’ and you said it back.”

“You’re sure  _I_  said that?” Clarke asks, slight doubt in her voice. “I thought Sniffs can’t hear things in visions.”

“Monty’s been able lip-read since we were kids,” Raven chimes in.

Which is true. At his mother’s insistence, Monty learned the skill as a child to cover up instances just like this, when he slips up and forgets. He hasn’t made that mistake in awhile. The aftermath of seeing Finn and Jasper murdered again has left him more shaken up than usual.  _If one can get used to these things,_ he thinks wryly.

“Anything else?”

“Storage locker was number 4100. Other than that, nothing.”

“Well, it’s a good enough start,” Clarke says. She hesitates, then pulls him into an unexpected hug. “Thank you, Monty.”

“You’re welcome,” he answers with a sincere smile.

“We should get going,” Bellamy notes. Clarke nods at his words, and the four of them move towards the exit.

A flurry of worry hits Monty as he realizes that Raven and Octavia are both going with them, and the only family he has left in the world is about to walk out the door. He doesn’t know why— maybe the echoes of his vision are just haunting him again— but he can’t help but feel a dark sense of foreboding, a bad premonition in the pit of his gut.

“Hey guys?” he calls, chasing after them out of his study.

Clarke pulls the rest of them to a stop, her hand on the handle of the apartment's front door.

“Be careful. They don’t deserve to get another one of us.”

*~*~*

The bus ride to the university is short and, all things considered, not as awkward as Clarke anticipated given the hostility between Raven and Bellamy. For the most part, Raven continues to ignore him in favor of chatting with Octavia on a subject Clarke can’t quite grasp, but sounds like it’s some sort of inside joke between the two of them. It’s entertaining to watch their banter shoot back and forth, and Clarke is only now starting to understand the complicated relationships between the Blakes, Monty and Raven.

Whatever Clarke was expecting when she arrived at the Dropship, dressed in borrowed clothes and hope on her sleeve, she wasn’t expecting that.

She wants to ask who the Jasper Monty was screaming about is, how he is connected to the Finn that Raven lost, and if he is part of the ‘they’ that could have lived. She wants to know how the four who lived managed to escape the mountain base, why Monty and Raven hate Bellamy so much but are so close to Octavia, and how that even works given how close the Blake siblings are. She wants to know if Monty is really okay, how good he is at covering up his hurt, if she made the right call by manipulating Bellamy into becoming the bad cop to win Monty’s help— or if that choice wasn’t about her at all, but about the clear loyalty Octavia, Monty and Raven have to each other.

She has all these questions, all of them inappropriate and all of them prying into wounds that have not yet healed. Instead she settles for an easy one.

“Yesterday when you mentioned the friend who liked the First Age. That was Monty, wasn’t it?” Clarke asks, as they steps off the bus.

“Yeah,” Octavia answers. “He’s practically a time capsule of knowledge about that stuff, which I guess helps for the parties they throw.”

“The two of them actually own that bar by themselves?”  

“If you’re going to gossip about me, do it to my face,” Raven interrupts, stepping in time with them. “And yeah, it’s ours. Monty’s parents left it to him.”

“Sorry, I’m just curious.” she says, but Octavia waves off her apology, knocking shoulders with Raven as she joins them. “It’s really amazing,” Clarke adds.

Raven smirks. “You don’t have to flatter me; I’m already helping you,” she jokes. “But continue talking about my awesomeness if you like.”

Clarke laughs in spite of herself. Bellamy leads the way, silent and focused, and she knows she should be on the lookout for more Division agents too. In the mass of people in the sidewalks, however, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd, and her curiosity overrides her caution.  _I’d get a vision if they were coming_ , she reasons.

“Hey, Raven, are you okay to walk this much?” Clarke asks, suddenly realizing that they’ve been walking for a while.

“I’m fine.” Raven pats the metal strapped to her leg. “I actually walk better with the brace, since it’s stronger than my other leg. I built it so I can run. See?”

Raven hops up onto one of the concrete benches that separate the lawn from the sidewalk and walks alongside her. Closer to eye level, Clarke notices the intricate gears working in time to bend Raven’s leg with fluid ease. The more she looks at it, the more Clarke thinks it’s less of a brace and more like a mechanical piece of armor. It’s far more sophisticated than any mechanized support Clarke’s seen in any hospital.

“Wow,” she says, impressed. “Did you build that yourself?”   

“Yup,” Raven replies, jumping down next her. “A lot of Psychics discount the Normal methods of making things because we can wave our fingers and change things with our minds. Me? I like things both ways.”

Raven waggles her eyebrows, and Clarke flushes a little at the clear innuendo. Octavia rolls her eyes, giving Raven a playful shrug which she returns easily. “Plus, I have to put some of that education to good use somehow,” she adds.

Clarke raises her eyebrows in surprise. “You studied at the base?”

Raven shrugs. “I took up engineering, mechanics, and like a semester of rocket science as a way to stay busy. My mom worked for Division, so they gave her a lot of leeway. It’s the one thing I can actually say she did for me, even if it was only so she didn’t have to look after me.”

The disinterested tone in her voice does nothing to distract Clarke from knowing there’s more to the story than that; if her mother worked for Division, how did she wind up out here? She’s tempted to ask but the veiled concern Octavia shoots Raven makes her bite her tongue. A touchy subject, then. Clarke clears her throat and switches subjects instead.

“So how long have you all known each other? Did you take classes together or meet somewhere else?”

Raven lets out a loud laugh. “O, didn’t you tell her anything?” Clarke’s confusion must be enough answer, because Raven replies in amusement, “I didn’t meet this one until the day I got out.”

“I grew up watching you guys, though,” Octavia complains.

“Yeah, like Casper,” Raven sniggers.

Clarke furrows her eyebrows. “Who?”

“Drink,” they say in unison.

“Don’t mind them. They do this a lot,” Bellamy huffs.   

Raven’s face hardens at his interruption. “Stay up front and keep an eye out for Bleeders, Blake.”

Octavia sends him an apologetic look, and he turns away, grumbling. “If you haven’t noticed,” she explains to Clarke, “Monty has a lot of vids and music from the First Age. He makes us watch things together for research for theme nights, and some of the stuff kind of sticks.”

“Every time one of us makes a reference and the person doesn’t know what it means, they have to drink,” Raven adds. “Casper was a friendly ghost, which is basically what this one was, sneaking around the base all invisible like a creep.”

Octavia’s face scrunches at the insult. “I got bored. You try spending thirteen years with just Bellamy to play with.”

“Hey!” Bellamy interjects. “I did pretty well considering.”

“Which I totally appreciate, Bell, but a girl needs friends other than her brother,” Octavia counters sweetly.

“So how did you meet if you didn’t all know each other living in same base?”

Clarke’s question pulls all playfulness to a halt. Octavia and Raven exchange shifty looks, and Bellamy speeds up and walks away towards the docks. They break away from the crowds to follow his lead, but Bellamy maintains his distance. It only takes a second more for understanding to dawn on Clarke that their reluctance to speak in front of him is tied to the chasm of hurt that separates Bellamy from the rest of them. 

“Look, you might as well tell me as much about Mt. Weather as possible,” she says after another beat of silence. “I’m going to have to know the details to help your mom break out.”

Raven’s head twists towards Octavia, and her voice softens, serious and low. “She’s helping you get Aurora out of the Mountain?” Octavia says nothing, so Clarke nods in confirmation. “You should have led with that,” Raven chides. “I wouldn’t have given you so much grief.”

Octavia dips her chin and mumbles her response. “I didn’t want to pressure you. Not after—”

“O, it’s your mom.”

That Octavia accepts the reason with uncharacteristic reluctance brings Clarke’s impatient need for answers to the surface. “Start from the beginning,” she says. “And please, no inside jokes.”

“No one on the base knew I existed,” Octavia starts. “Our mom kept me a secret, and she Shadowed me until I was old enough to learn how to go invisible.”

“Doesn’t Division have Watchers working for them?” Clarke asks.

Raven and Octavia share another undecipherable look.  

“They do,” Octavia replies carefully. “Watchers tend to be selective on what they share, though. The best secrets pay the best price. I guess I just wasn’t important enough of a secret for them to care.”

“Jasper, Finn, Monty and I lived in Mecha Station with all the Sniffs and Shifters,” Raven cuts in. “Well, technically they lived there, but I was there so often, I practically did too. Octavia and Bellamy lived in Terra with the Shadows.”

“They keep us separate so we can’t work together. The only Psychics they trust are the lapdogs that live in Alpha,” Octavia says with a dark look.

“So how did you escape?”

“As soon as Bellamy turned eighteen, Mom told him to walk away. The Mountain can’t force adults to stay unless they break the law. Then they wind up in the Skybox prison.” Octavia kicks a rock along the sidewalk. “That’s where Mom is now.”

Clarke tilts her head in question. “How do you know that?”

“We still have friends in the base. You hear things,” is Raven’s cryptic reply. Clarke makes a mental note to follow up on that later.

“Anyway, when we left, the plan was for me to go invisible and walk out right next to Bellamy, but I was thirteen. I was nervous from all the guards, and I accidentally showed myself. Luckily, Jasper saw me first.”

She pauses and takes a breath. “He didn’t even know me, but he caused a distraction so we didn’t get caught.”

“If by distraction you mean Shifting his shirt so it looked like it was on fire and pulling the fire alarm to attract the guards,” Raven snarks. “He always did dumb things for pretty girls,” she adds, and sends Octavia her own sad smile.

“So if you only have to wait until you’re eighteen to leave, what happened?” Clarke asks Raven, keeping her tone as delicate as she can.

Raven swallows, and Clarke waits patiently, letting her take her time. “You know how you always hear about experiments they do in the Mountain?”

The tremble in her voice makes Clarke regret that she asked.

“Well, turns out they’re not always so voluntary. A little over a year ago, Monty and I got on their list. I was almost eighteen, but Monty is two years younger. By the time we found out, there wasn’t enough time to get out.”

“Is that…” Clarke doesn’t know how to finish, just motions at Raven’s leg.

“Yeah,” Raven breathes. “Jasper and Finn broke us out, but the escape didn’t go so well. They have guards everywhere in the tunnels, which if you’re planning on using those for Aurora, you should know.”

Clarke adds the advice to her list of considerations. “How did you get out exactly?”

“Through the tunnels that the Bleeders use. That’s where they keep them, away from everyone else. It’s the only real weak point in the mountain base. Octavia was our getaway car.”

“Except I was late,” Octavia says, self-recrimination creeping into her voice.

Clarke recalls Raven’s words about a radio and puts the dots together. “Bellamy didn’t want you to go, so he threw out your communication device.”

The lull of silence is enough confirmation of her guess. Raven slides her palm down Octavia’s arm and grasps her hand, squeezing it gently. The thin press of Octavia’s lips into an almost smile tugs at Clarke’s chest a little. She doesn’t get why their shared grief resonates with her so much, with a familiarity she doesn’t understand. She wonders if it has anything to do with the friend Monty spoke of, the one missing in her memories.

After a moment, Octavia speaks again, her voice steady and clear. “Jasper didn’t make it. I was able to get Monty, Finn and Raven out, but by the time we got to a Stitch, Finn had died.”

“We’re here,” Bellamy announces before Clarke can properly process Octavia’s statement.

At the sight of the tall building, all conversations of the past drop. Their arrival shifts the mood into high alert, all focused on the here and now.

Bellamy tests the handle, and the double doors open up easily into a cavernous space, no doubt left unlocked in preparation for the afternoon’s parade. Tall windows, reaching high towards the ceiling, line one wall. Shafts of sunlight shine spotlights on the six enormous floats that take up most of the room, evenly spaced between the four large pillars supporting the high ceiling.

Tidbits of her elementary history class pop into Clarke’s mind, as she picks out the scenes from beginning of the Second Age depicted in the colorful dioramas. White and gold papier-mâché stars adorn the tops of the Sky People’s Ark Space Station and Dropship, and the forest full of Grounders stands near another float with the grey mountains of Mt. Weather.  Next to the float of the old city of TonDC, orange cellophane mimics the flames lighting the top of the Polis tower, as Grounders, Sky People and Mountain Men mingle together in the markets below. The tune of an old childhood rhyme sings in Clarke’s head:

 

_Where mountains, stars and trees come together, the world’s made safe and mankind better._

 

“I’ll keep lookout with Octavia,” Bellamy orders. “You and Raven look for the lockers.”

Clarke moves on autopilot, maneuvering past the messy tables of unkempt supplies. She wills herself to remember anything of the scene before her, but it’s a blank slate.

The pungent smell of turpentine ends up guiding them to the back of the room. Raven tuts at the open canisters. She reaches over and puts the caps back on.

“You’d think people would learn to keep track of flammables so close to fireworks,” she says, pointing to the large cart of rockets and sparklers along the back wall. “Whatever happened to safety first?”

Clarke shrugs her response and ducks around the Ark Station float, finally spotting the row of lockers in the far corner of the warehouse.

“Hey Raven, I found it,” she calls, and Clarke looks for the locker labeled 4100. She reaches up and runs her fingers along the top of the metal’s edge, hoping to find a hidden key somewhere, but no such luck. There’s nothing there.

“Great. We don’t have the key,” she complains. “How the hell are we supposed to pry this thing open?”

“Please,” Raven scoffs and drops her bag into Clarke’s hands. “Here, hold this.”

Clarke watches carefully as Raven takes out a tube and squirts a pink substance into the keyhole until a small gob of it juts out. It must be some sort of quick drying polymer because after a few moments, it hardens into a malleable putty that could almost serve as a key. Except the material is too soft. The putty would crumble if they tried turning the lock.

“Now what? It’s just stuck there now.”

“Hang on, Impatience McGee.”

Raven cups her fingers to cover the lock. She closes her eyes and concentrates. Clarke still isn’t sure what she is doing, until a small glow emits from the cracks between her fingers. Raven removes her hand to reveal a shiny, metal, misshapen ball where a putty one used to be, and she turns it with a deft twist, opening the locker door.

“See? Here you go.” She slides the crudely formed but perfectly serviceable metal key out of the lock and tosses it at Clarke with a smug grin. “Built to last.”

She catches it despite her surprise, the metal surprisingly cool in her hand.  Clarke gapes at the key, unable to keep the shock out of her voice.  “You can Shift things permanently?”

“Just small things,” Raven says, “Most Shifters don’t know that if you want to really change things, not just the appearance, you have to know the molecular compositions of what you’re breaking down and what you’re building up. It’s all science. Which, if you’re me, is a piece of cake. That’s why I am the best.”

Raven buffs her nails against her shirt and blows on them in an exaggerated imitation of a gesture Clarke once saw in movie. She shakes her head in awe at the girl’s brilliance. She’s cocky, but she can back it up, and Clarke’s glad to have her on her side.

“Just don’t tell Bellamy,” Raven adds in a mock whisper.

When Clarke swings the metal door open, her heart drops at the sight of the pile of familiar clothes sitting inside the locker. In the corner, she spots her dad’s favorite shirt, wrapped around a cylinder. Fear digs its claws into her heart as Clarke unwinds it to reveal a tube containing a syringe of black liquid just as Monty described. There’s a crack in the glass protecting the syringe, and Clarke surmises that the battered object has been through a lot. How much of that included her, she doesn’t know, but the presence of her father’s belongings with it is enough cause for worry.

Reminding herself that her mother taught her not to panic until there is something to panic about, Clarke folds the shirt up and wraps the fragile tube up as carefully as she can, using the rest of her father’s belongings to cushion the inside of her bag. As she puts them away, her fingers brush up against metal and glass, and Clarke can’t help the gasp that escapes her lips when she finds her father’s watch hidden among the clothes.

She stares at it, too caught up in her discovery to notice Raven’s appearance at her side until she speaks.

“Find something?”

“It’s my dad’s watch,” she replies, trying to quell the anxiety in her heart. “He never takes it off.”

“You don’t know anything yet,” Raven reminds her, touching her shoulder with a light hand. “Maybe Monty will know more if we give him that tube.”

Clarke lets out a shaky exhale and wipes at the corners of her eyes. She puts the watch on, stroking the familiar grooves on the face’s edge. For once, she wishes she could see clear into the past instead of the hazy future, just so she could get her answers now.

Without warning, Octavia appears out of nowhere beside them.

Raven jumps at her sudden presence at their side. “God, O, what did I tell you about pulling that Invisible Man shit?” she exclaims.

But Octavia’s face holds no trace of amusement. “Bell says someone’s coming. Hide.”

The echoes of terse voices back up her statement, spurring them to action.  As Octavia fades back into the woodwork, Raven and Clarke split up, each climbing up on a separate float.

From the higher ground of the Ark Station float, Clarke can see a good portion of the room. She catches a glimpse of shadowed form creeping up behind Raven. The glint of a gun catches the sunlight, hitting Clarke in the eyes, and the wood creaks beneath her as she moves out of its path. Clarke ducks behind one of the stars in the float. She quiets her breaths and stills her motions, in hopes that she didn’t attract too much attention.

However, luck is not on her side. The footsteps come closer.

Clarke leans further back to stay out of view, but it’s a mistake. She feels the papier-mâché give under the weight of her body. Time pours out like molasses as Clarke knows what is coming next but is unable to stop it. Somewhere mid-fall, she senses the unsuspecting agent below her, at which point Clarke decides: to hell with it. If she’s going to topple over, she might as well turn this into a tackle. She twists her body and lands with an inelegant grunt on top of the agent’s back, crushing his face to the ground as the gun skitters away.

The body under her feels smaller than what she was expecting, and when she opens her eyes, Clarke realizes that the man isn’t a man at all, but a girl. As she scrambles off her, embarrassment heats Clarke’s cheeks as she gets a better look at the girl rising to her feet.

Her long brown hair hangs in small braids like a curtain, hiding her face from view; however, even without seeing her face, the red Henley shirt and faded jeans give her away as a student. Clearly not an agent from Division.

Clarke moves closer to apologize. Startled by the movement, the girl’s hand shoots out in front of her, lightning fast in response. A forgotten gun flies quickly in front of Clarke’s face, and then everything just stops.

Clarke swallows hard, tries to jumpstart her brain again. Danger stares down at her along the barrel of a floating gun, and she needs to block out the heartbeat pounding in her ears and the fear tightening her throat to figure out how to get away from it. The weapon hovers in the air, nudging her nose, as the Mover pushes her hair back with her free hand to reveal an angry stare.

Clarke’s mind races, trying to get a read on the girl holding a gun to her head. She’s young for a Resistance fighter, not that much older than Clarke herself. Maybe a couple years, give or take. Given her age, Clarke reasons that she’s probably not a hardened killer despite the cloud of fury in her eyes. There’s a beautiful intensity to her, and something about her quick, cat-like reflexes hints towards a strong sense of street smarts. Clarke’s counting on that intelligence if she has any hope in talking the Mover down.

“I’m not your enemy,” she begins, hands up in surrender.

The girl pulls back at her words, squints up at the Ark float, and blinks owlishly back at her. Then, green eyes clear and widen in understanding.

“The stars…you  _fell_ on me,” she stutters in either awe or sheer dumbfounded disbelief; Clarke can’t tell which. Something akin to recognition lights in the Mover’s eyes.

“It’s you,” she utters. Clarke shifts under the weight of her gaze. “The girl who fell from the sky.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, kids. From here on out, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.


	5. Act II: Visions and Revelations (2/3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, kids. Game changer. 
> 
> Also, the soundtrack for this fic can be found here: http://8tracks.com/dealan311/100-push-au

 

 

 

“It’s you,” Lexa repeats, and that’s about as much as her short-circuited brain can process right now.

She thought she would be prepared for this moment. Certainly when she strapped on her Kevlar under her clothes and geared up this morning to follow Lincoln to meet the Sky Girl (Clarke, he said was her name), Lexa thought she was. After Lincoln had briefed her on the Bleeders and Anya had given her counsel on the Blakes, Lexa thought it prudent to bring Indra and Gustus along as extra back-up. She devised a plan to let Gustus act as Commander while she posed as a low-level foot soldier, allowing her to observe Clarke freely and make her own decisions about the Watcher. All things said and done, Lexa couldn’t have readied herself more for their first meeting.

And yet here she is, stuck in destiny’s trap once more, the future kicking her in the teeth because she forgot to pay attention to the signs.

 _‘One day a girl will fall out of the sky,’_ Costia had said. 

In her haste to meet the girl, Lexa had forgotten the falling part. And for all the warnings that she had that her destiny would be to help Clarke, not once did Lexa consider that that help would be acting as the cushion to break the Sky Girl’s fall. A bitter laugh threatens to escape her throat, the fading pain in her ribs a forgotten afterthought compared to the sting of fate’s twisted sense of humor.

“Do I know you?” Clarke asks, breaking the silence between them. She holds herself stock still, eyes wide and pupils blown, as she stares down the barrel of Lexa’s gun.

With belated realization of the poor first impression she’s making, Lexa Calls the gun back with her hand. The weapon flips as it flies through the air and stows itself, snug in her thigh holster, but Clarke keeps her distance, hands up in caution.

_Remember. You’re the hapless, non-threatening Second, not the Commander._

Lexa tries to make herself small, as green and inexperienced as the new recruits Indra commands in her boot camp. She plasters on an apologetic look on her face.

“I’m sorry about the gun. I just panicked,” she demurs.

“It’s okay. I should actually thank you for breaking my fall.” Clarke relaxes into the joke, and Lexa ducks her head, a bashful look easy to fake thanks to the uncalculated flush of her cheeks in the face of Clarke’s smile.

“I’m Lexa,” she introduces, holding out her hand.

“Clarke,” she replies. Her fingers are cold and soft as they curl around Lexa’s hand.

 _She’s pretty_ , Lexa observes, more so than she expected for some reason, but that isn’t what draws Lexa’s attention to her face. Up close, Lexa can see that despite his honed skills, the static nature of Lincoln’s drawing failed to capture Clarke’s calculating intelligence in motion. Lexa can feel her eyes, piercing and sharp, as they roam over her face and body, evaluating and assessing Lexa as friend or foe.

Her pink lips curve, careful but sure, and Lexa recognizes the performance behind it, the disarming kindness to buy time and get a better feel for the lay of the land. Whether it is by design or instinct, Lexa doesn’t know. But after holding on to Clarke’s hand for a beat longer than appropriate, she catches herself being drawn in by Clarke’s charm.

As Lexa releases her hand, Clarke gestures toward the gun on her leg.

“You’re with Lincoln and the Resistance. He told you about me,” she guesses, and Lexa adds perceptive and intuitive to her mental list of Clarke’s attributes. The gun is a dead giveaway that Lexa’s with the Resistance, but the leap to connect her with Lincoln before Lexa even mentions him requires a bigger mental jump.

“Lincoln mentioned that Division was after you, so the Commander sent us to help,” she replies, testing to see how Clarke will react to the possibility of Resistance support.

Clarke frowns in puzzlement. “Why would the Commander be interested in me?”

Before Lexa can answer, however, shouts echo from the center of warehouse. They hear a scuffle in the distance, and when she and Clarke move towards the open space, the sight of a tense standoff greets them. Clarke actually steps in front of her, blocking her from the danger. Lexa has to hide her amusement at the action.

Two unarmed girls stand between Lincoln and an angry male—Bellamy, going by Anya’s description— who is currently Pushing a floating gun against Lincoln’s temple. In retaliation, a furious Indra has her gun trained on the impulsive hothead threatening her nephew, but the look on Lincoln’s face tells Lexa that he’s more concerned with protecting the girls. She can already see him trying to de-escalate the situation, motioning to Gustus and Anya to stand down.

“Bellamy, Octavia’s right. Put the gun down,” the black-haired girl orders. Only when she steps forward does Lexa notice the metal brace on one of her legs.

“Not until he tells us what they’re doing here, Raven,” he grinds out.

“We’re here for Clarke,” Anya replies, the flat calmness in her voice belying the tension in her shoulders, coiled and ready to strike like a snake.

“No way. We called dibs,” the other girl says, vehement in her protest as if she isn’t standing unarmed between four guns. She turns to look behind her. “Lincoln, she’s helping me with my mom.”

Hurt laces her voice, and Anya’s assessment proves to be on the mark as usual, as Lincoln softens in apology, his attachment to the girl clear. “Octavia…”

“Hey, NO,” Bellamy cuts in, shifting closer. “You don’t talk to her. You talk to me.”

Indra fumes as she advances on Bellamy. “Let him go, boy, and maybe I’ll make your death quick and painless.”

Lincoln holds out a hand. “Indra, don’t. Please.”

“Wait, I know you,” Octavia says, eyes narrowing. “You gave me the radio last year.”

“O, you know this woman?”

Octavia ignores her brother, stepping closer towards Indra.  The movement threatens the stability of their uneasy holding pattern. “You never answered me before. How did you know Jasper?”

“She knew Jasper?” Raven interjects.

“Get out of my way,” Indra orders, Shoving Octavia when she gets too close.

“Don’t touch her!” Bellamy yells.

As the chaos builds, Gustus shoots a quick hand out to Pull Bellamy’s weapon away from Lincoln and Lifts Bellamy high into the air. Octavia and Raven shout, held back by Indra and Anya, while Lincoln attempts to talk Gustus into letting the boy down. Bellamy hangs in air like a marionette and struggles to lift his arms and perform a counter Move. He manages to rip off a piece of forest from the Grounder float and send it flying at Gustus, but Indra Bats it away without any effort.

Clarke’s mouth drops open at the exchange. From what Lincoln and Anya have told her, Clarke only met the Blakes yesterday. Curious to see whether she will run at the sight of her new friends in distress or stay and defend them, Lexa nudges Clarke on the shoulder.

“That’s the Commander,” she prompts, pointing to Gustus, and waits to see what Clarke will do next.

“I’m going to need to borrow your gun,” she declares, jaw clenching in determination.

Lexa is pleased; Clarke is loyal and a fighter. She isn’t about to let Clarke shoot at her people though, and her fingers wrap around Clarke’s wrist when she reaches for her holster.

“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” Clarke promises, her wrist turning in Lexa’s grasp. “I’ll give it right back.” 

Crystal blue eyes bore into hers, and she feels herself affected by Clarke’s pleading look. Lexa grips the gun on her thigh, years of Anya’s tutelage warring with Costia’s voice in her head.

_‘Say it again: your weapon is your life. Never give either up without a fight.’_

“Lexa, please. Trust me.”

_‘You have to help her, you understand? Help her and you help all of us.’_

With a sigh, Lexa puts herself in fate’s hands and passes her gun over.

“Follow my lead,” Clarke says, and she shoots three warning shots into the air. She strides out of the shadows, Lexa walking at her side.

“We aren’t your enemies, Commander,” she announces. She hands Lexa back her gun in plain view. When Clarke turns her back to Lexa again, Lexa gives a wordless signal to let her speak uninterrupted. “Tell your people to stand down, or I’m never helping you with anything.”

Over Clarke’s shoulder, Lexa motions to Gustus to heed her words. Bellamy drops to the ground with an unceremonious thud. Octavia and Clarke rush to his side, while Lexa joins Gustus, standing behind him to act as his Second.

The two groups face off in the middle of room, and satisfied that Bellamy is physically unhurt, Clarke turns to Gustus. “Now, what do you want from me?”

Eager to broker peace, Lincoln speaks instead. “Clarke, we’ve been looking for you for a long time. I wasn’t able to tell you before, but I had a vision you before I Saw you with Bellamy.”

“What kind of vision?”

“That you would fall from the sky and help us win the war,” Gustus intones.

Clarke’s eyebrows draw together in skepticism for a moment, before she snorts in realization and begins to laugh. Her chuckles fade when she looks at Lexa and realizes she isn’t joining in. A look of incredulity replaces her mirth.

“Wait, you’re serious? You think just because I fell from a float that has stars on it that I’m supposed to help you win a war?”

“It is your destiny,” Gustus replies, continuing the charade.

“Lexa, tell your Commander he’s nuts,” Clarke says, her dismissive tone clear.

Lexa can feel Clarke slipping away from them, and tired of the ruse, she decides she’s seen enough.

“I’m not nuts, Clarke,” she says, stepping forward and drawing herself into full commander mode. “And I am the leader of the Twelve Clans, not Gustus.”

“ _You’re_  the Commander?” Bellamy says in bewilderment, but Lexa only has eyes for Clarke and her reaction.

Although Clarke says nothing, Lexa can feel the fragile connection between them snap, replaced by confusion and wariness. The question as to why Lexa misled her is evident in the silent look in her eyes, as the automatic deferral of command from Indra, Gustus, Anya and Lincoln confirms Lexa’s words.

“But you’re the same age as us,” Bellamy continues to protest.

“You still haven’t learned a thing about appearances, have you?” Anya scoffs.

“Clarke,” Lexa begins, attempting to rebuild the bridge between them. “I can help you. We can help each other.”

Clarke steps away, throwing up her hands. “Yeah, no. This is insane. I'm sorry, but I don't know you, and I already have all the help I need. I'm just a Watcher. I'm not a soldier.”

“Wait. Why didn’t you See them coming?” Raven asks. “I thought Watchers got visions whenever someone was coming after them.”

Clarke falters at the question. “I don’t know,” she replies. “My visions have been on the fritz since I left the hospital.”

It’s only because she’s standing close enough to Clarke that Lexa is able to see it.

The unusual dilation of her pupils has been present in Clarke’s eyes ever since their meeting. It is in part, Lexa rationalizes, the reason why she keeps finding herself staring.

But now as fear and uncertainty begin to cloud Clarke’s face, the blackness has almost eclipsed the blue hues of her irises. It edges into the whites of her eyes for half a second, flickering like a pulse, and the sight kicks up a memory in her brain. Anya’s lectures on defenses against Psychics and what black eyes mean rattle against Costia’s message in her mind:

_‘If you see black eyes, guard your mind. A Pusher's mind control makes any lie into the truth.’_

_‘She might fight you on it and push back, but she’ll need your guidance and support.’_

_Push back._

**_Push._**

“You’re a Pusher,” she says out loud.

“What?” Clarke asks in faint surprise.

“You’re a Pusher,” Lexa repeats. “Your eyes. They keep turning black.”

Clarke takes a step back. “That’s ridiculous.” The black in her pupils pulse again.

Lexa points to Clarke’s face. “There! You see? Your eyes give you away!”

“But Pushers don’t exist anymore,” Raven says, confused. “They killed them all off in the Psychic War, along with Porters and Changers.”

“I am a  _Watcher_ ,” Clarke insists. “I’ve had visions, drawings. How would I get those if I was a Pusher?”

“Lincoln?” Octavia’s voice asks in the background.

“Have you been Pushing us this entire time?” Bellamy shouts, rounding on Clarke and pushing his face into hers.

Lexa seethes at his action, but Raven is already yelling and yanking him back. “Hey, leave her alone. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing.”

“How can she not know?”

“Guys!” Octavia calls, frantic with worry.

Lexa ignores their exchange and reaches out to Clarke. “You should come with us. We can help you.”

“I am not going anywhere with you,” Clarke snaps, pulling her arm away. “You’re crazy.”

“GUYS! VISION!” Octavia shouts, finally earning their attention.

They turn to Lincoln, who leans against Octavia and Indra. “There’s trouble. We need to go.”

“But the party is just getting started,” a chilly voice echoes from the entrance of the warehouse.

*~*~*

Bellamy feels his blood curdle, ice hardening his veins when he sees the number of Division uniforms blocking the only exit.

He searches for Octavia, who is nowhere to be found, and something in his chest relaxes, safe in the knowledge that she’s smart enough to make herself invisible. He only hopes she doesn’t do something stupid, like try to save their lives.

As the six men in SWAT gear stand off against the motley crew at his side, Bellamy starts to sort out the threats.

A vague memory of his cadet training helps him pick out Lovejoy, a Normal, from the line-up. The grip of his machine gun still sports the occasional sticker his son slaps on for good luck against the Psychics.

The Movers are easy enough to identify; Dax and Murphy never wear helmets in battle. Kane is up in front, of course, and he  _does_  wear a helmet, but Bellamy would recognize the stance of his former teacher anywhere. And if Kane’s there, then Shumway is probably the helmeted soldier at his side.

Bellamy can’t make out the last agent, but he’s standing next to Cage Wallace, the biggest threat in the room. The President’s son is the Head of the Capture Task Force, and if he’s here in person, then Clarke is more trouble than he’d ever dreamed.

Cage strides forward, looking out of place and overdressed in his white shirt and infamous grey three piece suit and shades. His laugh is cold, and Bellamy tightens his grip on his gun at the sound. Cage is a lot more brazen than he expected, walking unarmed into the line of fire.

“Emerson, didn’t I tell you today was going to be a good day?” he says, turning to the agent at his side.

 _Emerson_. Bellamy flips through the catalogue in his brain until he remembers the Normal who got promoted to Cage’s right-hand man. 

 _Three Movers, Shumway, two Normal soldiers, and Cage,_  he counts.

“Yes, sir,” Emerson salutes.

“Dad said it’d be good, but this?”

Cage’s teeth flash in a frost-hard smile. “We get a lead on Dr. Griffin’s serum, and not only we do find her daughter, but we also get Resistance fighters as a bonus.”

“You knew my mother?” Clarke ventures after a beat of silence.

Bellamy glances in confusion at her.

“Yes, of course, Clarke,” Cage replies, almost friendly in his tone. “Everyone in Mt. Weather knows Abby Griffin. You grew up there. You don’t remember?”

_Abby Griffin._

_Not Clarke Walters._

_Clarke Griffin._

Bellamy feels an angry heat grow inside him, like someone stoking a fire in his chest as Clarke’s lie falls apart and the pieces fall together.  _Clarke Griffin, Abby Griffin’s daughter. Fuck._  They are so in over their heads.

Cage’s voice softens as he pulls his shades down his nose to look Clarke in the eye. “Your mother has been worried sick about you. It’s time for you to come home,” he says, reaching out an open hand.

Clarke shakes her head. “No, my mother died a year ago. I saw her die in front of me,” she insists.

The firm conviction in her voice is unmistakable, and Bellamy tries to puzzle out the lies from the truth of what’s in Clarke’s head.

Dr. Griffin is one of Mt. Weather’s doctors and their only surgically trained Stitch. It would have been news if she had died, but Clarke seems steadfast in her belief that her mother is dead.

“She’s alive,” Cage insists, advancing closer. “And she’s going to be so proud of you for bringing in these Resistance fighters. What'd you do, Push all of them to convince you to help you?”

Clarke’s voice grows frantic. “I’m not a Pusher,” she protests again. “I’m a Watcher.”

Bellamy frowns. Assuming Clarke is Abby’s kid, then she can’t be a Watcher or a Pusher. Everyone knows Jake Griffin by reputation, the Normal engineer who married a Stitch. None of this makes sense.

“You don’t have to pretend with us, Clarke. Your mother works with us, remember?”

 _That_  definitely doesn’t make sense. Abby may have married a Normal, but she’s not a traitor like Kane. She doesn’t take lives; she saves them. And from what little he saw of her at his and Octavia’s check-ups growing up, he could tell she has no loyalty to Division.

Cage steps closer again, and Bellamy can’t figure why he keeps spouting blatant lies instead using more force unless…

For a moment, Bellamy considers the facts: the likelihood of Clarke being a Normal; her being Wiped; a mysterious serum of unknown value and purpose; Lexa’s claim that Clarke is a Pusher; and now Cage, unarmed and acting with the boldness he’s only ever seen in Psychics who have powers to back them up.

Following a hunch, Bellamy squints at Cage’s face, looking past the shades that partially hide his eyes, until he sees it. Black swirls dance in Cage’s eyes, and Bellamy recalls the detail in the Mt. Weather history books:  _black demon eyes are the only visible signs of a Pusher._

“Clarke, don’t listen to him! He's lying about your mom! He’s a Pusher!” he yells in realization. “They’re making Normals into Pushers!”

Then, as if using his warning as a cue to action, Octavia appears next to Lincoln with a lit Judas Belt firework in her hand.

To Bellamy’s horror, she lobs the smoking belt of firecrackers in the middle of the room, aiming it in the direction of Cage and the Mt. Weather men. It lands right on top of Dax, and he screams in pain as the long line of small, sequential explosive rounds ignite and fire off like a machine-gun, one after another in rapid succession, a deafening barrage of noise.

The flash from the explosions and the cloud of smoke that fills the room create an instant cover, and chaos reigns as bodies split into various directions. In his panic, Bellamy is frozen in place, unable to make out where Octavia is and whether or not she is safe. The invisible pull of a Mover Drags him into the corner by the lockers to safety, behind a blockade created from two of the floats.

When the smoke clears and his ears stop ringing, Bellamy peeks his head out from behind the Dropship float. He sees Resistance fighters on the other side of the room. They are hiding in the corner behind a similar blockade made from tables and the Grounders float, but his sister and Raven are nowhere in sight. He steps forward, craning his neck to get a better look, but a hailstorm of bullets greets him. His body curls up on instinct to the loud cracking sound of gunfire, and he feels strong hands pull him back.

“What do you think you are doing without a Shield?” Indra hisses. “You’re going to get yourself killed, boy.”

“I was trying to get a map of the room,” he argues back, unwilling to admit his mistake. “I saw Lincoln, Anya and your other man across the room, near the fireworks. But I can’t find my sister or Raven anywhere.”

“Lincoln wouldn’t let anything happen to her, Bellamy,” Clarke reassures him. “I’m sure she’s safe.”

“You don’t know that,” he lashes out at her. “You don’t even know what you are,  _Griffin,_  unless that’s something else you’re lying to us about.”

Clarke refuses to be cowed by the blow and looks him in the eye. “What’s the plan then?” she challenges.

“The plan is, I find my sister and Raven and get the hell away from you,” he snaps back.

“ENOUGH,” Indra commands. “There will be time enough for blame  _after_ we have all escaped.”

The Commander sidles next to her. “We work together to get all of us out. Agreed?”

For her part, Clarke is just as wary of the Commander as ever, but they are pinned down in the corner, and they’re going to need every gun on their side.

“They have three Movers, a Sniff, two Normals, and Cage.” Bellamy says in lieu of an answer. “Well, two Movers now. I’m pretty sure that Dax isn’t getting up anytime soon.” _I’m pretty sure Dax isn’t getting up, ever._

The Commander frowns. “They’ve taken the northeast and northwest corners of the room. They’re blocking our path to the exit. We need to know who’s where to form a plan of attack.”

“The Movers won’t have helmets on,” Indra notes. “They never do.”

“Kane will,” Bellamy corrects. “He’s their top Mover. Don’t underestimate him. If there’s a Mover on Cage’s side, it’ll be Kane.”

“Come out, Clarke! I’m trying to bring you home!”

Cage’s voice bounces off the walls. Clarke shakes her head, rattled by the sound.

“Block it out, Griffin,” Bellamy presses.

Clarke looks up with determined eyes. “You know all their men. Can you identify who’s in what corner?”

Bellamy nods. “If I can get some help, sure.”

“Indra, provide him cover fire,” the Commander orders. “I’ll protect Clarke.”

Clarke and the Commander pull away, climbing to higher ground on the Ark Station float. Bellamy follows Indra to the edge of the Dropship.

“How’s your Shield?” Indra asks gruffly.

“I can hold my own.” Defensive training was never Bellamy’s strongest suit, but every cadet had to pass the basic shielding techniques before graduation.

“On my mark, run for the closest pillar. It should give you the best vantage point.”

Bellamy puts his hands up and Calls up an energy shield to deflect any bullets that may come his way, careful to ensure that none will ricochet into their corner or Anya’s. If anything hit Octavia by accident, Bellamy would never forgive himself.

“3…2…1,” Indra counts down. “NOW!”

Before Indra even manages to get the command out, Bellamy tears across the no-man’s land of the middle of the warehouse, running for the pillars in the middle of the room. A torrent of bullets bounces off his Shield, the rainbow spark of metal clashing against energy so often, the invisible shield almost looks a corporeal, iridescent dome.

Bellamy ducks behind the concrete pillar and presses his body in line with it as best as he can. Indra is right; from his spot, he can see all four corners and the barricades protecting each one.

He breathes a sigh of relief when he spots his sister behind the Grounder float. Lincoln is providing cover fire while Octavia and Raven hunch over a cart, which can only mean one thing: Raven’s building something. And knowing his sister, Octavia’s planning on helping her out. Bellamy’s not about to let that happen. He needs her safe.

“Bellamy!” Indra yells, drawing his focus away from his sister. “The positions!”

Bellamy curses and hopes whatever Octavia and Raven are plotting, it takes a while. He turns and refocuses his attention across the room.

Directly across Octavia and Raven, Anya and her partner are battling against Murphy and one of the helmeted soldiers. The Resistance pair is a formidable team: Anya flickers in and out of sight and casts weapon after weapon across the room, while the huge, bearded Mover Shields them both and Throws projectiles of paint cans, switches of wood, and other art supplies. The way the Division agent scrambles out of the way tells Bellamy that it can’t be Kane. His best guess is Shumway, from the height and build.

_Time to test a theory._

“Murphy’s a Mover! The useless helmet head’s a Sniff!” Bellamy shouts, then ducks as a bullet whizzes by his head, blasting away a piece of concrete from the pillar near his ear.

“Fuck you, Blake!”

_Yup, definitely Shumway._

Bellamy spots another helmet pop up from behind the Mountain float. “Lovejoy’s a Normal, northwest corner!” he guesses next.

“Gustus!  _Gona_  alpha three!” Anya calls, and they move in tandem, shifting into a new line of attack.

Murphy and Shumway don’t stand a chance against them, not when the Resistance fighters keep switching off between offense and defense and the attacks come from two sides. Lovejoy— and Bellamy can tell it’s him now, because the sticker gives him away again— tries to fire in retaliation from behind the Mountain float, but Anya is a moving target he cannot place.

“It doesn't have to be like this, Clarke!” Cage shouts over the din. Bellamy follows his voice to the barricade of the Polis and TonDC floats nearest the exit doors. “Just come out with the serum and we can go home!”

“Cage is in the northeast corner! Aim for the float!”

Bellamy waits for the attack to come from the Ark or Dropship, but instead the attack comes from Octavia and Raven’s side of the room. Another firework rockets past, headed like a missile toward the TonDC float. It almost reaches its target, but then a helmeted figure steps out, arms stretched.

“It’s Kane!” Bellamy shouts, hoping Indra or the Commander will fire at him.

But Kane moves too quickly, Catching the rocket midair and Turning it around in the direction it came. Bellamy looks over his shoulder, and when he sees that it’s heading directly for where Octavia is standing, high on the Grounder float, panic kicks in.

He rushes forward, forgetting his Shield again, and with as much force as he can manage, Bellamy Hurls a table at the rocket to redirect its path. It smashes against the large windows, igniting in a small explosion.

A bullet clips his left arm, and Bellamy scrambles for cover, but he’s more focused on Shielding Octavia, Raven, and Lincoln from the blast of glass and shrapnel than protecting himself. He pushes through the pain and concentrates on keeping them safe until the dust settles.

They’re almost clear of the debris, and relief courses through his veins, until Octavia’s voice breaks his focus again.

“Bellamy!” she screams, pointing. He turns to see a large beam of wood hurtling toward him.

Pain shoots through his wounded arm as he raises up a Shield, but the beam is coming too fast for him to slow one-handed. His Shield is unsteady, and it will not hold, but he has to continue to protect his sister. Arms stretched in opposite directions, he looks away and braces for impact.

It never comes.

Instead the beam jerks up as if plucked from the air and rolls harmlessly to his side. When Bellamy turns around to see who stopped it, surprise catches him as Indra offers him a grim nod. He stares back at her in confused thanks. His brain can’t make out why she saved him.

Another scream, this time from above, shatters the moment though. Bellamy’s head cranes up at the noise, and when he registers what he sees, his jaw slackens at the sight.

Suspended high in the air, a glass tube jerks back and forth in an invisible tug-of-war, while a petrified Clarke hangs on for dear life, swinging in air with it.

*~*~*

 _This was a bad idea,_ Clarke berates herself as she hovers high above the chaos. It all happened so fast. One moment she was sure of the facts:

  1. Her name is Clarke Griffin.
  2. She is a Watcher.
  3. Weather is not her home.
  4. Her mother is dead.



Then Lexa called her a Pusher, the President’s son stormed in, Bellamy called  _him_ a Pusher, and all the while, Clarke’s head has been buzzing in confusion, trying to sort out the contradictions in her head.

Somewhere in the confusion and chaos, Cage Wallace yelled for her to come home, and his words triggered a vision in her mind’s eye.

_*FLASH*_

_Clarke sees her five year old self giggling, chasing a little boy around the same age through the hallways._

_“Clarke,” her mother scolds. “What did I tell you about playing in my office?”_

_“It’s all right, Abby,” her father smiles down at her. “Let them be. She and Wells won’t be kids forever.”_

_*FLASH*_

The vision felt like a memory, even as it clashed against the knowledge that she has never stepped foot in the Mt. Weather base. The emotions it evoked and that sense of security felt so vivid, so  _real_  that before she knew it, she was listening to the whisper of Cage’s voice, slithering around in her brain and spinning promises inside her mind.

**_*Your mother is alive, and she’s waiting for you. Bring us the serum and come home.*_ **

The pull toward that truth and the hope that her mother was alive was so strong, Clarke just followed it out of position, with the glass tube in her hand. She didn’t really come to her senses until she heard a small explosion on the other side of the room.

By then, it was too late. Their Mover had Pulled her into the air, and all she could do was scream for help as she flew towards to the exit. She was already halfway across the room, when she felt the tug of another Mover pulling her to stop.

Now, as she hangs above the melee, Clarke’s head is clear again, but she has to choke back the panic as she feels herself being jerked around in two directions. She counts her blessings that Lexa and the Division Mover are playing tug-of-war with the serum instead pulling her body apart. Still, her arm is starting to ache. 

Clarke chances a quick switch of hands, swinging her arm up to catch the tube sliding back and forth in small movements. Her fingers almost slip, but she manages to grasp on to the glass, even if she can feel the cracks in it start to splinter. She can’t hold on for much longer.

 _Please, don’t break,_ she pleads. She can’t lose the only clue she has for where her father is. She can’t lose the only parent she has left.

Her heartbeat hammers in her ears, and her mind curls around the memory of her mother dying in the hospital bed, her warm hand resting on Clarke’s perpetually cold fingers—  _‘cold hands, warm heart,’_  she’d always say. The ache of her loss, the reality she feels in her bones, anchors Clarke’s confusion and sweeps away Cage's illusions and false promises. How could she have ever thought anything he said would be real?

“Clarke!” Lexa calls from the ground. “Find the Mover!”

From her new position, Clarke can see the entire warehouse, her eyes scouring the room for the Division Mover. Below her, Bellamy and Indra fend off attacks from Emerson and Cage's guns, providing cover for Lexa while she attempts to Pull Clarke back. On the far side of the room, next to the gaping hole where tall windows used to be, Lincoln shoots at the Sniff, while Octavia and Raven work in the corner. Near the Mt. Weather float, Gustus and Anya are relentless against Murphy and Lovejoy.

Finally, her eyes land on Kane, grasping at air with concentrated focus as he hides behind the Polis float.

“He's in Polis! Kane’s in Polis!” she shrieks, and in an instant, Bellamy Sends a shockwave across the room that topples over the float.

The tension holding Clarke in one place snaps like rubber band without warning, and with nothing Pulling her forward, Clarke goes flying back to the safety of the Ark Station at an alarming speed. Twisting back, she spots Lexa standing in front of a large cart of supplies. Clarke feels her Shove upwards to slow Clarke’s descent, but it does little to stop the air from rushing out of her lungs when they collide, nor the sickening crunch she hears as she slams backwards into Lexa’s arms.

Dazed by the fall, Clarke’s first coherent thought when she comes to is that the ground beneath her feels softer than anticipated. Then a sharp hipbone digs into the small of her back, bringing Clarke back to reality.

When she opens her eyes, she finds that Lexa has managed to catch her completely, her entire body breaking Clarke’s fall. The arm wrapped around her waist tightens, and Lexa lets loose a hiss of pain when Clarke shifts above her.

It’s then that Clarke recalls the cart that was behind Lexa when they fell. Alarmed that her weight may be pressing Lexa down into broken pieces of metal and wood, Clarke tries to find a gentle way to roll off without inflicting more harm. But when her hands search for a solid place to push off, she finds that they’ve landed on a large cushion, no cart in sight. It doesn’t make sense; Clarke knows what she saw, and a cart can’t just disappear into thin air. Unless it was a Push or…

Somebody Shifted it. Clarke raises her head and scans the room until her eyes lock onto Raven's look of relief from behind the Grounder float.

“Best goddamn Shifter on the planet,” Clarke sighs, dropping her head back against Lexa's shoulder. 

The rise and fall of Lexa's chest against her back reminds Clarke that she has to move, but for all Clarke's careful efforts to slide off her without hurting her more, Lexa still groans underneath her. Her mouth puffs hot breath next to Clarke’s ear.

“I do not like that this is becoming a habit,” Lexa mutters.

Clarke twists around to shoot her a rueful smile of apology, but a smear of red catches her eye first and she remembers the crunch she heard. She inhales a shallow breath at the deep gash running along Lexa's entire forearm.

“Lexa, your arm,” Clarke says.

“It’s nothing,” she begins, sitting up slowly to examine the wound. "I don't think any glass got in it." 

But it’s not the glass shards that have Clarke’s concern. It’s the broken syringe of serum and the dark splotches soaking into the edge of her rolled-up sleeve. Her entire forearm is dripping in it, rivulets of black running into Lexa’s wound, mixing in with the red.

It's not nothing,” Clarke chides, ripping a long strip from the bottom of her own— well Bellamy’s— shirt. She wraps it tightly around Lexa's wound, putting pressure on it to staunch the flow of blood. “We have no idea what was in that serum.”

Lexa begins to protest, but then her entire body grows rigid mid-sentence. Clarke shouts in alarm as Lexa falls forward and starts to seize, her eyes rolling back. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Bellamy running up to Shield them, yelling to Indra for help. By time he’s reached their side, Clarke is already pulling Lexa into her lap to prevent her from hitting her head against the floor.

For ten terrifying seconds, Lexa continues to convulse in her arms, then goes stock still. Clarke tries to remember her training for a seizure: she rolls Lexa on her side, rubbing a hand along her back, and checks her airway for breath. Clarke looks up at Bellamy in fear when she feels no movement in her chest, no sign of air exiting or entering her lungs.  _This can’t be happening. I didn’t just kill the leader of the Resistance against Division._

Then Lexa gasps, eyes snapping open. Clarke exhales in relief.

“Are you okay?” she asks, helping Lexa sit up. She leans forward to check Lexa’s vitals, fingers flying to her pulse point, while the other hand tilts her chin up to get a better gauge at the responsiveness in her eyes. 

“Yes,” Lexa replies, breath ragged but green eyes lucid and clear. Beneath her fingers, Clarke can feel a racing pulse, but before she can voice her concern, Lexa is already pulling away, staggering to her feet. “I’m fine, Clarke.”

Clarke opens her mouth to convince Lexa to see reason, when she sees Lexa tense again. Reacting faster than Clarke can comprehend, Lexa shoots out her good arm over Clarke’s shoulder and Sends a blast of energy toward Bellamy, at the piece of float careening past his Shield in their direction. The shockwave explodes the wood and paper into a cloud of confetti and splinters showering to the ground.

“Whoa,” Bellamy exhales, glancing over his shoulder.

Yet the incredible feat is just one more noise lost in the chaos of the fight. Clarke surveys the battlefield the warehouse has become. Across the room, Gustus Slams Murphy into the ceiling, then Bounces his battered, bloody body repeatedly between two pillars like a pinball machine. Anya is next to him, flipping like a ninja on top of Lovejoy, and Clarke has to look away when she takes him down and slices his neck open.

Closer to them, Kane and Indra are locked in hand-to-hand combat, accelerated fists clashing in a flurry of movements too hard to track. Clarke starts to panic when she can’t spot Emerson or Cage.

“Get the Commander!” Kane hollers, dodging Indra’s swift kick to his side.

On instinct, Clarke grabs Lexa’s gun from her thigh holster and aims for Kane, pulling the trigger without thinking. A tight cluster of bullets hits against his Shield, near where his head would be, and the distraction is enough for Indra to clock him in jaw. Clarke almost drops the gun in shock.  _How does she know how to fire a gun like that?_

Her surprise is cut short, however, at the sound of Lexa’s anguished scream.

For a second, she can’t understand why, when their corner isn’t under attack, until she realizes the Division agents don’t know who the true Commander is. Clarke looks up just in time to see Gustus and Anya fall to the ground, bullets finding their mark as the Division agents aim their guns in their direction. 

Lexa runs towards them with reckless abandon, rage in her eyes. Clarke’s not sure Lexa even feels the pain as she raises both arms up and unleashes her fury. Clarke prepares herself for another show of excessive force, but instead, flames flare out of Lexa’s fingertips, igniting the barricade of floats the agents are using for cover. Astonishment prevents Clarke from doing anything but watch as black uniforms scatter in panic at the new— impossible— attack from the Commander. Bellamy ducks as balls of fire shoot out of Lexa’s hands, one after another, burning up paper and wood. The shock at the sight renders them speechless.

Well, it renders her speechless.

“YOU CAN THROW FIREBALLS?!?!” Bellamy yells in surprise.

*~*~*

At Kane's command, Anya sees the glint as the muzzles of machine guns dip towards Gustus. By the time the gears click in her brain with the understanding of why, she’s already hurling herself forward, propelled by the instinct to push him out of the line of fire.

She can't lose another person to this war. Not after her parents. Not after Costia. Not after Tris. Gustus is her oldest friend, one of the few she has left in the world. She  _won’t_ lose him too. 

Time stretches like the string of a bow, slowing down just enough for Anya to know what's coming, before shooting forward like an arrow so fast she's unable to do anything but brace herself for the hit. The force from the impact knocks the breath from her lungs, and she screws her eyes shut as she falls on her back.

She's not sure how many seconds she blacks out for, but when she comes to, pain spears her in her chest as she gasps for air. By the time she opens her eyes, Lincoln is already at her side. He claws at her clothes to search for a wound.

“Stop, you're gonna make the bruises worse,” she grouses. She bats his hands away and tears her shirt open to prove she’s all right, revealing the embedded bullets in the center plate of her Kevlar. Lincoln shudders in relief and helps her to her feet while Anya coughs, continuing to struggle for air.  _Why the fuck is it so hard to breathe?_

Then she looks up and sees the black plumes of smoke rising near the rafters. Flames lick at the floats, spreading quickly throughout the warehouse. At first she thinks it must be from the fireworks.  But, no. She wipes at her eyes, wondering just how hard she knocked her head, because through the haze, it looks like Lexa is shooting  _fireballs_ from her hands at the scrambling Division agents across the room. 

“When did you teach her that?” Lincoln asks in wonder.

Anya is more concerned with Lexa herself. She is unmitigated and unrelenting in her wrath, hurling unfocused attacks in blind rage. Anya hasn't seen that kind of lack of control in her young charge in years.

But before this new development can sink in, Indra’s shouts turn her attention away, and the sight of a wounded Gustus steals another breath from Anya’s lungs. 

She sprints to Gustus' side and shoulders his weight with Lincoln’s help, as Indra Shields them from stray bullets. With Lexa and Bellamy drawing their fire, Division is too preoccupied to pay much attention to them; but one glance down at Gustus’ reddened fingers and the blotch of crimson seeping through his shirt near his stomach, and Anya knows it isn't good.

“Where the fuck is your Kevlar, old man?” Anya grits out, equal parts anger and fear.

Gustus gives her an infuriating crooked smile. “Who needs protective gear when I've got you?” he wheezes, and Anya wants to smack him for being so such a foolish  _Mover_. 

“I'm going to  _kill_ you if you die.”

The four of them make it behind the safety of the tables and prop Gustus gently against the wall. While Lincoln and Indra tend to his wound, Anya slants her head up, noting the way the smoke has started to funnel out the gaping hole in the windows.  _They might as well put up a billboard that says, ‘The Resistance is here. Please arrest us.’_

The grave faces she sees when she looks back down in their little huddle tell her that the others have reached the same conclusion.

“How does this end?” she asks Lincoln.

“I don’t know!”

“How long ‘til the drones show up?” Anya asks, already cycling through possible exit strategies in her mind.

Lincoln closes his eyes, Scrying for an answer, then blinks after a second, shaking off the slight shudder from the forced Sight. “Eight minutes and we're toast.”

“We need an exit for the Commander,” Indra adds.

“What's the plan?” Lincoln asks.

Indra and Anya fall into a familiar rhythm of rapid fire suggestions, born from years of shared battles as Lieutenant and Second.

“Operation  _Gouthru Klir_?”

“Too many of us.”

“ _Azegda_ , ’71.”

“Too many of them. That time in the Dead Zone?”

“Not enough space.”

Anya clenches her teeth behind a closed-mouth scowl. Lincoln steals a look at Gustus and opens his mouth to speak, but she already knows where their minds have gone at the mention of the Dead Zone.

“And no, that won't work either. We agreed never to speak of that incident again, remember?” she warns them both with a sidelong glance. She points a finger at Gustus. “You. Concentrate on putting pressure on that wound and not dying.”

Indra raises an eyebrow, and Anya tries not to squirm under her mentor's scrutiny.

Lincoln picks up on her discomfort and offers up another suggestion. “What about  _Swis Gomplei_ , when you did the thing that time?”

“Do you see any grenades lying around here?” Anya dismisses with an exasperated wave.

“Well if you ask nicely,” a voice drawls behind them.

They turn around, and Anya’s eyebrow pops up in surprise when Raven holds out a metal paint can in her hands. Octavia flashes a wide grin next to her as Raven smirkes in pride.

“Careful,” Raven says, when Anya stands to peer down in it. “There's enough crap in there to blow your face off. It’d be a shame to mess up yours.”

Anya blinks at the out-of-place compliment. Indra's eyes widen, perhaps the most surprised Anya has ever seen her, then shakes her head. “Where did you get a bomb?” she asks.

Raven snorts. “I’m a mechanic who studied to rocket science. You think I can’t build a bomb out of a couple fireworks and turpentine?”

Indra narrows her eyes at the flippant tone, but Anya is already running scenarios in her head to see if adapting the plan is feasible.

“Is that enough blow a hole in the side of the building?"

“Yeah, if you place it right.”

Anya surveys the room through the smoky haze and starts to calculate the numbers, evaluating the risk. 

_Clearest route: float, pillar, cart, pillar, Ark.  Fifteen across, five meters break for each pillar. Weakest points at 55— no, 70 and 135 degrees to maximize structural damage nearest the Division agents. No more than two per Mover for coverage to ensure 95% survival rate. Provided they can find a getaway car and there truly is enough gunpowder to blast a hole for an exit…_

_It could work._

Indra recognizes the look on Anya’s face when she reaches her conclusion, and she turns, already Calling an empty cart to their side.

“Which protocol for the rendezvous?” Lincoln asks.

Anya considers their odds. “ _Trikova_  protocol beta.” 

“Guys, English,” Octavia interrupts.

“We're going across,” Anya orders, already helping Gustus to his feet as carefully as she can. Indra Lifts him up, and Anya steps away to pull the cart in front of them. “Raven’s going to Shift that bomb to look harmless. When we’re on the other side, Raven lets the Shift go, and you three get out of here through these windows.”

“No way. I am not leaving Bellamy,” Octavia protests with a vigorous shake of her head.

Precious seconds slip by, and the waste of time eats what little is left of Anya’s patience.

"Lincoln, take care of this,” she snaps.  

She leaves it to him to deal with the girl, turning her attention to Raven instead.

“Shift that into flowers,” she commands.

Raven waves her hand, transforming the makeshift bomb into a bunch of white lilies. Anya nods in approval.

“No matter what happens, do not let go of the Shift until we’re clear.”

“Of the blast radius?”

“No. Until we cross the room.”

Raven grows pale at her words.

“Indra and Lexa will have us covered. Your friends, too,” she reassures. “Just follow the plan. Once we're across, let go of the Shift, then you run like hell, got it?”

Anya can see the fear in her eyes, but Raven’s voice when she says yes is steady and resolute, and that’s good enough for her. She turns back to Lincoln and Octavia.

“Well, are we doing this or not?”

*~*~*

“I'm not leaving my brother behind, Lincoln.”

Octavia made a promise to herself that she'd never split up from her family again, and there's no way she's leaving him to get blown up.  _It's not happening._

“Indra and Lexa can't cover all of us when this explodes, not with Gustus down and Bellamy hurt,” Lincoln explains. “If we go with them, there's no guarantee we'd all get out alive, including Bellamy.”

Octavia does a double-take at the assumption that he would be going with her. She had only meant that she would go with them, but Octavia recognizes the determination in Lincoln's face, similar to her own. Something in her stomach flutters at the certainty that he would fight to stay her side as much as she would fight to be at Bellamy’s.

“If he's hurt, then he needs my help,” she argues.

“He needs you to stay safe. Anya is the best tactician I know,” he reassures her. “She runs numbers in her head like you wouldn't believe. If she says this is our best chance to survive, it is. You have to trust us.”

Smoke spreads like a fog in the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Raven Shift the bomb into a bunch of flowers. She hands it to Gustus, already lying in the cart. Time is running out, and the pressure to decide feels like a noose tightening around her neck.

“He's all I have,” she says, desperation edging into her fear.

Lincoln's hand wraps around hers, steady and warm. “Not anymore.”

"Well, are we doing this or not?" Anya cuts in.

Lincoln looks at her, letting her make the call.

Octavia turns to Anya, voice as stern and commanding as she can muster. “Take care of him.”

“I will,” Anya promises.

Indra draws Lincoln close, their foreheads touching, and whispers something Octavia can’t quite hear. Then Indra calls up her Shield, and Anya grips the handles of the cart, ready to make a break for it. 

“When it's done, go left, then right,” Lincoln tells them. “White van at the top of the hill hides a spare, passenger side, front tire.”

“See you on the other side,” Anya replies.

“Get ready,” Indra warns a half-conscious Gustus.

“Do it,” he mutters, and they race away.

Octavia watches as the three Resistance fighters battle their way across the room towards Bellamy and the others. The Division agents begin to turn their attention to the newcomers, drawing their fire away from Lexa, Bellamy and Clarke. To her relief, Indra's Shield holds.

“Promise me that he will be safe,” she asks Lincoln again, needing to hear the all-knowing certainty from someone who routinely Sees the future.

“I promise," he says. "But we need to go.”

He presses his gun into Octavia's hand and leaves her to stand guard over Raven. She glances at Raven, at the way her brow begins to furrow, her concentration deepening to maintain the Shift as they move further way.

“You good, Rae?”  

“Just keep pointing that gun, Annie Oakley,” she replies with a hint of a smirk. Raven's sarcasm is reassuring and familiar, and it calms the frantic feeling in her bones.

“They'll be okay, O,” Raven adds. 

A crash of glass sounds behind them. When Octavia turns around, Lincoln has already unlatched what is left of the window. 

“You first, Octavia.”

Octavia guides Raven backwards towards the window and hands Lincoln the gun. Careful to avoid the shards of glass in the grass below, she climbs out and jumps down the short distance from the ledge.

“You next, Raven!”

“Lincoln first! They're not across yet!”

Fear spikes in Octavia as she hears the sounds of sirens approaching.

“Hurry! We don't have much time!” Octavia yells.

“Lincoln, go!” Raven all but pushes him out the window.

Octavia helps him as he stumbles out, and she looks up at Raven, perched up on the window sill, eyes still locked on the scene inside.

“Okay, they're clear!” Raven shouts after a beat, but just as she turns to jump down, Octavia hears the pop of gunfire from inside.

The horror of seeing Raven dropping out of the window closes up Octavia’s throat. She wants to— needs to move, because it’s Raven, but the paralyzing thought of losing her staples Octavia’s feet to ground.

Thankfully, Lincoln swoops in to catch her.

“I’ve got her! She’s alive!”

Carrying Raven in his arms, Lincoln runs as fast as he can from the warehouse, calling Octavia to follow. As they tear past the docks, he shouts, “The red car at the top of the hill! It's unlocked!” 

Octavia sprints ahead and just as she reaches the car, a large blast explodes behind her. She turns around and looks in dismay in the distance as the warehouse starts to collapse inward, the pointed roof folding in on itself. 

“Bellamy,” she whispers, and she tries to remember that this was all part of the plan.

Lincoln staggers for a couple steps as he approaches her. Octavia springs forward to hold him and Raven steady as a vision ripples through him.

“They’re out,” he rasps. “We have to go.”

Octavia scrambles to open both doors of the car and quickly climbs into the back seat. Lincoln places a groaning Raven into her arms. Blood drips onto her lap, seeping into her clothes, and Octavia panics.

“Where are you hurt?” she asks, holding Raven with shaking, but careful hands.

“Back,” she grinds out in pain.

Octavia cradles her body in her arms, positioning Raven to be as comfortable as possible. As gently as she can, she puts pressure on the wound to try to stop the bleeding.

To her relief, Lincoln jump-starts the car and they begin to pull away, getting lost in the bustle of Polis’ flowing traffic. As they speed past the warehouse, Octavia glances out the window and catches a glimpse of the burning wreckage left in their wake. A whole side of the building has been blown off, with half a wall left standing among the rubble of bricks and glass, the rest of the warehouse flattened by the collapsed roof. Smoke from tiny fires still clouds the air, masking the view inside.

It’s hard to believe that anyone could have survived.

Then again, Octavia woke up this morning not knowing Pushers still existed and Movers could shoot fireballs. Anything seems possible today.

 _Just please be alive,_ she begs, sending a prayer to fate, destiny or whatever higher being is up there to keep her brother safe. Clarke's mysterious note floats in her mind, and the words echo in her head like a blessing and a promise wrapped in one.

_May we meet again, big brother._

Raven squeezes her thigh and cries out in pain, and Octavia clings onto her and the hope that they’ll all survive this day.

 


	6. Act II: Visions and Revelations (3/3)

By all accounts, they should be dead.

Even with the fraction of a warning of what is to come, Clarke steels herself to feel the force of the blast when Indra shoots at the flowers-turned-paint can and the world explodes around her.

But the impact never comes, and when she opens her eyes, Clarke’s throat grows dry at the sight.

Indra and Lexa stand back to back with arms up, their combined Shields forming a shimmering bubble around themselves, Anya, Gustus, Bellamy, and Clarke. Through the thin, prism-like barrier keeping them safe, Clarke can see the blast from the explosion engulfing them in waves of fire and ash. It only lasts for a few seconds, but inside the shell of protection, held together only by the force of Indra's and Lexa’s sheer will and strength, Clarke can’t help but take time to marvel at the feat.

It’s unreal, like something out of a dream. She doesn’t know how they are doing this, especially with Lexa’s injury. She can still see Lexa’s bandage, singed with soot and blood starting to drip from it again.

Even when the roar of the explosion dissipates and Clarke unplugs her ears, the Shield continues to hold and protect them from the aftermath. Brick and mortar rain down around them, sending rippling rainbows along the edge as they hit the Shield. Clarke can almost hear the creaking beams of the roof crumble, foreshadowing their inevitable fall.

“When we drop the Shield, get ready to follow Anya!” Indra shouts. “On my mark…NOW!”

Like a choreographed dance, Lexa and Indra turn, dropping their Shield, and bolt after Anya leading the charge. Indra stretches out her hand and Lifts Gustus as they run. Lexa Moves pieces of wreckage behind them to cover their tracks. Clarke struggles to keep up, and Bellamy’s frantic shouts to Anya only add to the chaos.

“Where’s my sister?!” he yells, as they round one corner to the left, then another to the right into a small alley.

“Safe!” Anya grunts as she sprints ahead.

They stutter to a stop at the end of the alley, in front of a white utility van. Anya reaches behind the tire of the passenger side and pulls out a key. Within seconds, they pile in the back, Gustus sprawled on his side with Indra putting pressure on his wound, and Lexa, Bellamy, and Clarke sitting on the other side. The squeal of rubber marks their departure as Anya slams on the gas and spirits them away to safety.

“Where’s Octavia?” Bellamy asks again, panting heavily as he shuffles closer to the driver’s seat.

“With Lincoln and Raven. We sent them to escape out the other side before the blast,” Anya replies distractedly, turning the corner. “Sit down before you get us into an accident,” she snaps.

Clarke closes her eyes and leans her head back against the cool metal of the van. She takes in deep, steadying breaths and tries to slow her pounding heart. They’re safe, for now. Division is buried under the rubble, and it will take a while to dig them out, but they’re not out of the woods yet. 

The once forgotten pain from the bruises and cuts she’s sustained begins to creep into her awareness, and she tries to block out the exhaustion she feels and the reek of smoke, sweat, and the coppery tang of blood. Her eyes only open when she feels warm breath hit her neck. She turns to see Lexa falling against her shoulder, head bobbing as she dips in and out of consciousness.

With the immediate danger passed, Lexa seems to have let go of her iron-grip control, and Clarke recognizes the signs of her body finally reacting to the hits it has taken. A wave of concern washes over her for the girl who saved her life, because nothing she did was normal. The medical intern in Clarke doesn’t even know where to begin. Lexa’s energy is draining— from the blood loss, holding that Shield up, goddamn _fireballs_ , and who knows what else was in that serum. She needs help.

“Are we on our way to them now?” Bellamy presses.

“We need a Stitch first,” Clarke tells him with a fatigued sigh. “Gustus and Lexa won’t last long without one.”

But Bellamy’s voice continues to rise higher as he repeats the question. Clarke can see the tension coiling in Anya’s shoulders as he edges closer.

She’s about to protest and forcibly pull him back to his seat, when out of nowhere, a syringe floats next to him and plunges into his neck. His eyes roll back and Bellamy falls unconscious at her feet, all before Clarke’s shout of alarm escapes her throat. Unable to fight with one arm trapped under the weight of Lexa’s slumped over form and the other pinned down by the sudden appearance of Indra’s hand, Clarke feels the pinch of a needle of her own. The room starts to spin into a blur, and her eyes begin to droop against her will.

Her last thought before the darkness descends is that she hopes Octavia and Raven are faring better.

*~*~*

There’s a movie that Finn and Jasper loved, and Raven can’t for the life of her remember the name.

She should know it; there were a lot of explosions. She remembers picking it apart and pointing out the errors in the physics, much to the boys’ chagrin. She just can’t recall the name.

But in it, the hero— a cop, she thinks— realizes he’s stuck in same predicament that he was before, and he utters an iconic line that’s running in a loop in her head right now:

_“Oh man, I can’t fucking believe this. Another basement, another elevator. How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?”_

How the fuck, indeed.

In another stolen car, in another backseat, Raven lies on her side, head cradled in her friend’s lap. Blood trickles uncomfortably down her back, onto the coarse fibers of the seat and down the back of her pants. Octavia worries her lower lip between her teeth as they drive away from danger.

For a second, Raven thinks she’s dreaming. She’s lived this nightmare before. In a moment, Monty will rouse her from her sleep. They’ll sit on their balcony sipping coffee and hot chocolate and play music to distract them from another sleepless night. Everything will be fine.

Then the car careens left. Her body shifts with it, and there’s the pain, the pain, the pain.

It’s blinding, searing white-hot near her spine, too real to be a dream because reality is always more painful, always so much worse.  Every pointed pulse of pain spikes in time with her heart until she sees stars beneath her eyelids. Raven groans through the haze of delirium.

She thinks about the cop again, recalls the utter frustration and bewilderment in his face, and she releases a ragged laugh at her similar fate.

“Raven?” Octavia gapes down at her in confusion.

“We’re in a stolen car, trying to escape from Division goons. I’m bleeding and can’t walk _again_.” Raven actually fucking giggles this time, pain shooting with every shake of her body. “Same shit to the same girls twice, right?”

“You’re quoting _Die Hard_ at me right now?” Octavia’s voice is high with incredulity.

“ _That’s_ the name of the movie,” Raven sighs with a smile, pressing her cheek against the fabric of Octavia’s jean-covered knee. Not knowing would have bugged the hell out of her.

“Shut up and hold still,” Octavia commands.

“No, keep her talking.”

Raven looks up to catch Resistance boy’s eye in the rear-view mirror.

“As long as she’s talking, we know that she’s lucid.”

“I’m always lucid, Watcher boy,” she grumbles back. “I can do physics in my sleep.”

Octavia twists and glances back behind them, worry etched on her face. “Lincoln, you’re sure they’re okay?”

“Yes,” he assures her with the calm certainty only a Watcher can provide. Raven hates it. It reminds her of her mother, even if the comparison is unfair. “Anya knows the protocol. They’ll head to a safe house and then we rendezvous with them later. But first we need to get her help.”

A seeping spot of slickness on her shirt clings to Raven’s back, sticky and warm like a wet rag. It irritates the fuck out of her, almost as much as the radiating pain just left of her spine. _How far are they from the hospital? For a Resistance fighter, he sure drives like a grandpa._

She closes her eyes for a moment (or more— keeping track of time is so hard to do right now), but when she opens them and looks up out the window, she frowns at the upside down hospital lettering rushing by. The blurred sign passes too quickly for them to be headed for the building, and she doesn’t feel the car turn into the parking lot.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“We can’t bring you to any hospitals,” Lincoln replies. “They’ll be looking for us everywhere, and if we come in with a gunshot wound…”

“Got it. We’re fucked,” she finishes. _What a goddamn nightmare._

As her words sink in, Raven sobers at the realization that she’s going to have to hold it together longer than she thought. Whatever adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins is now draining out of her, and the sharp stabs of pain have started to blur together into a tight mass of throbbing hurt in her back.

“So where are you taking us?” Octavia asks again.

“I have a friend, Nyko. He’s a Stitch. He can help.”

Raven feels Octavia’s breath of relief and sees her smile of heartfelt gratitude.

“Thank you,” she says, gazing at him through the mirror.

“It’ll be okay, Octavia. I promise,” he reassures her again, voice soft and understanding.

Raven rolls her eyes at their googly-eyed staring contest.

“She’s not the one who’s shot back here,” she gripes. “Stop flirting and drive faster.”

As if accentuating her point, a muscle cramps in her back, twinging with an ache that goes straight down her legs. Raven bites back a strangled cry. Tears start to form in her eyes as her body grows rigid with tension, and she grips Octavia’s shins, digging her fingers into the torn fabric of her jeans, to ride out the wave of agonizing pain.

“Distract me,” she begs. The words barely escape her mouth when she cries out again, the muscles clenching and twitching under her skin.

“With what?” Octavia panics.

“Anything.”

Raven’s head spins trying to find anything to focus her mind. Right about now, she wishes she still had the title of _Die Hard_ to fixate on. _Damn Octavia for being so good at Monty’s trivia._ Then, the thought of Monty reminds her of a forgotten question that got lost in the chaos.

“Ask Lincoln how that woman knew Jasper,” she rasps.

“Lincoln,” Octavia calls to the front. “Who was that woman with the Commander? Not Anya.”

“Indra?”

“Yeah. I have seen her before.”

“She’s the chief of TonDC,” he replies. “And my mother’s sister. She raised me since I was five.”

Raven’s eyebrows pull together at that news. _She’s his aunt?_ No wonder she was so pissed when Bellamy put a gun to his head.

“How did she know Jasper Jordan?”

“Who?”

“Jasper. He was a friend of ours, a Shifter, when we lived in Mt. Weather. About a year ago, he and Raven were trying to escape with some friends, and Indra delivered a radio to me out here, with note saying Jasper needed my help,” Octavia continues. “Do you know anything about him?”

Raven sees the back of Lincoln’s head shake in denial. “I’ve never heard the name, and I know most of her contacts. What exactly did she say?”

“All she said was that someone did her a favor and now it’s been repaid.”

“Indra would not have had contact with anyone from Mt. Weather,” he insists. “Not unless they were connected to Resistance. And for her to have personally delivered a package in downtown and risk getting caught, it must have been a very big favor,” he adds.

“But who did the favor?” Raven whispers to Octavia. “Jasper’s parents died in a car accident when he was seven, and there’s no way _Jasper_ was involved with the Resistance. Or Finn. We would have known.”

Octavia frowns. “What about Finn’s dad? Is there any way he might helped the Resistance before he had his heart attack?”

“While we were living with him in the _Mountain_? That would’ve been suicide. You’d get shot up to the top of the ‘voluntary’ experimentation list in a snap.” Raven’s heart hurts at the reminder of Mr. Collins, all the dinners and movie nights and the warm, loving way he always welcomed strays into his home. “He wouldn’t have risked Finn’s— or any of our lives like that. No way.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Plus how would he have known where and when to send that radio to me _after_ he died?”

 _It would have taken a Watcher_ , Raven thinks. Which is impossible because almost all the Watchers in Polis are either imprisoned in the Skybox under lock and key, or working for Division, too loyal or too afraid to stand up to them.

Her own coward of a mother is a prime example: for as long as she can remember, Mirai Reyes has been an embarrassment to her name. Division’s go-to Watcher and perpetual drunkard, too bombed and too busy Scrying for visions to whore out to Division, that she didn’t even notice they were trying to turn her own kid into a lab rat.

Or maybe she just didn’t care enough to save her Shifter daughter who couldn’t make her money because Raven couldn’t See worth a damn.

“Raven?” Octavia prompts, looking down in concern at the patch of tears on her jeans and the wetness leaking from the corners of Raven’s eyes. “C’mon, focus on me and not your back.”

“I’m okay,” Raven recovers, wiping her eyes. She chases bitter thoughts away and concentrates on the mystery concerning the people who actually matter. Her real family.

_What’s the connection between Jasper and Indra?_

There’s a missing piece to the puzzle that she can’t quite grasp. Something simple. An answer she feels is sitting right in front of them, and she would know it if the piercing pulse in her back and thundering heartbeat in her ears weren’t scrambling her thoughts.

“Lincoln, do you know if—”

Raven cuts off mid-sentence as the car jerks and veers to the side. A new crest of pain crashes into her, flooding every nerve in her body. She hears the thud of Lincoln’s head hitting the headrest. _Why the fuck did they let the Watcher do the driving?_

“LINCOLN!” Octavia screams, as the car swerves again. Raven groans from Octavia’s lap, and she tries to hold her body steady until Lincoln snaps back to the present, smoothing out the ride.

“Hold her,” he orders without preamble, and at his command, Octavia grips Raven as the car takes a sharp u-turn.

“What the hell?” Raven gasps out, because she’s just about done being thrown around like a ragdoll on this hellish roller coaster of a ride.

“We can’t go to the safe house,” Lincoln explains, grasping the wheel with both hands so tightly she thinks he might rip the steering wheel off. He yanks it to the side, turning another corner. “If we do, we’ll lead them to it and we all die.”

“Cheery boyfriend you’ve got there, O,” Raven mutters under her breath.

But Octavia doesn’t respond to the jab, only cursing low with her eyes locked forward. Raven knows from that look and that tone that things are about to go from bad to worse.

She cranes her neck and listens for the sound of sirens, but she can’t hear a thing, no sign of Division vehicles fast approaching. Then she hears it. The whir of machinery sounding from above. The thwap of blades cutting through the air. The only thing that Watchers can’t predict because they’re made of steel and algorithms instead of skin and bone:

Drones.

A gunshot fires against the car. Then another, the sound of metal sparking off metal. The car turns sharply and Raven’s stomach lurches with it.

“Hang on!”

Lincoln pulls the handbrake. The car starts to drift, spinning until they’re facing backward, and he slams the car into reverse. Raven grimaces with every bump as they cross over the concrete island separating the lanes. A cacophony of horns blares from passing cars as Lincoln starts to drive backwards, straight into oncoming traffic.

Another bullet ricochets off the side mirror, and then one finally finds its mark on the windshield, cracking through the glass and embedding itself in the passenger seat.

“How’d they find us so quickly?” Octavia asks in a panic.

Raven wracks her brain for the answer, because she knows this. She remembers sitting in Mecha Station, watching how the engineers programmed the machines to track all manner of people and devices. _Anything with a signal, we can trace,_ she recalls Sinclair telling her.

Of course. They’ve been so stupid.

“My phone!” Raven yells, fighting through the pain as she tries to reach for her jacket pocket. “Throw it out the window! Yours too!”

“What!?”

“Just do it, Octavia! It’s how they’re tracking us!”

Octavia scrambles to retrieve Raven’s phone, when sudden darkness falls in the car and they disappear into a tunnel. _Smart move,_ Raven thinks. The low ceiling will prevent the drones from following them. Octavia uses the opportunity to open the window and toss their phones into the back of a passing pick-up truck in the next lane.

“Hang tight. One more,” Lincoln warns, and he slams on the brakes.

Raven whines as she falls forward. Octavia struggles to keep her in her lap, but as Lincoln shifts the gears again and begins to drive with the flow of traffic, the momentum propels Raven back into Octavia’s arms. Lincoln speeds back in the direction they came, and this time they’re prepared for the way he accelerates and weaves between the cars, taking the first ramp off the highway to safety.

After a few minutes, when it becomes clear that the drones have lost their trail, Raven releases the breath she’s been holding and relaxes into Octavia’s hold. Overwhelming pain falls like a mask over her vision; her entire body twitches like an exposed nerve, screaming with an ache all over. All she wants to do is sleep the pain away, because she really, _really_ , regrets not taking that nap this morning, and she lets the tiredness pull her eyes shut.

“No, no, no, no, Raven, stay with me,” Octavia insists, tapping lightly on her cheek. “You need to stay awake.”

Lincoln makes another hair-pin turn that jolts her eyes open. Judging by the darkened windows, Raven determines that they’re in some sort of underground parking garage. Finally, the car pulls to a stop.

“Stay here,” Lincoln commands, climbing out of the car in a hurry.

“10-4, Cap’n,” Raven mumbles in a slurry murmur.

“Raven, you need to stay awake,” Octavia repeats with more force.

She blinks in response and tries to wake up her body, stretching her arms and wiggling her toes. But when her good foot doesn’t respond, her eyes grow wide and her heart starts to thump a staccato beat of mounting dread.

She notices where Octavia’s other hand rests, high on Raven’s thigh, where she should be able to feel its familiar weight, but instead Raven feels nothing. She tries to wiggle her toes again, flex her good knee, clench her thighs— move anything below her hips, really— to no avail. Panic claws in her chest at the realization, and she’s finding it hard to breathe.

“Octavia,” she croaks, hating the quaver in her voice. “I can’t feel my legs.”

They both jump at the sound of two gunshots echoing in the garage. Raven winces in pain at the involuntary movement, and when Lincoln yanks their door open, she squints up at him.

“What’d you do?” she asks, as Lincoln lifts her into his arms.

“Disabled the cameras. We need to switch cars,” Lincoln answers in clipped sentences.

“And go where?” Octavia asks.

“We need somewhere off the grid, where Division can’t find us.”

Raven sighs in relief. _Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel_.

If a safe place is all they need, that is something Raven can provide. Monty hacked all the systems and wiped Division’s knowledge of the Dropship’s location a long time ago. As far as Division knows, the building doesn’t exist. It’s how they’ve stayed safe for so long.

“Home,” she mumbles, as she starts to slip into the darkness again. “Bring me home.”

*~*~*

Monty paces back and forth in the darkened bar of the Dropship, glancing at the front door every few minutes. He’s shuttered all the windows closed and doesn’t dare leave any lights on, save the one in the stairwell, afraid to give a hint that anyone is home. The glow from the television is enough to illuminate the worry lines on his face as he watches the evening news.

_[“…Police investigations are underway to assess the damage to an Ark University building after an explosion earlier this afternoon reduced it to rubble, bringing a halt to Unity Day celebrations. We go now to Callie Cartwig, who is on site for more details…”_

_“Thanks, Diana. As you can see behind me, broken bricks and glass lie on the street, and the entire roof of the Ark University's art studio has collapsed on top of the warehouse…”]_

“Goddamnit, where the hell are you guys?” Monty mutters to himself, worrying the fraying threads on his gloves.

When the news first hit that there had been an explosion in Ark U, the bad feeling in his gut that he felt when he watched Raven and Octavia walk out the door came flying back, and he immediately tried to call Raven. It rang until it went voicemail first; then the second time, it went straight to voicemail. When Monty tried to call Octavia next, only to get the same result, he went into full-blown panic mode.

It’s been hours since then, and now, as the first images of the wreckage flash across the screen, his heart pounds faster when he recognizes it as the exact building he sent his friends to this morning.

_[“…Although authorities have yet to comment on what caused the damage, witnesses say they saw smoke rising from the area around the building before the blast, as well as what sounded like gunfire in the vicinity._

_We have word that this warehouse stored not only six of the major floats for this afternoon’s cancelled parade, but also all of the fireworks for the parade’s finale display, so it is likely that they contributed to the explosion. But again, no word yet from campus authorities or Division officials as to whether this was an accident or foul play…”]_

Monty counts it as a win that the news anchor makes no mention of Raven, Octavia, Bellamy, or Clarke— or any casualties for that matter— but it could be that they’re just holding out until they can release the names.

They could have escaped. Maybe they were long gone before the explosion, and it has nothing to do with them.

But then he remembers Jurassic Night, and that Raven and Octavia are the same pair who thought Shifting cats into baby raptors was a good idea. Add in Bellamy’s hot-headed impulses and anger management issues, and this is exactly the kind of mayhem they might conjure up.

Concern for his friends rises as he considers the increasingly likelihood that Division has captured them. He tries to stave off the panic choking at his throat. _Please, just come home,_ he prays, willing his friends to walk through the front door.

And then like a message sent from on high, an insistent banging on the door answers his plea.

Monty rushes to the door and swings it in a wide arc, words spilling out as soon as he catches sight of a flash of black hair.

“Oh thank God. What took you guys so— Maya?”

Maya Vie stands in the doorway, nervously clutching her bag. She looks exactly the same as the last time Monty saw her: pale face, worried eyes, and a muted smile, the kind that would be as bright as the sun if not for the weight of the Mountain she carries. He hasn’t seen Maya in person since that fateful night they escaped, and the sight of her shocks Monty in a frozen stupor.

“Monty,” she says in relief, shooting a furtive glance over her shoulder. “Can I come in?”

“What are you doing here?” he gawks at her, before pulling her inside and shutting the door with a slam. “It isn't safe. I mean, shit, have you even seen the news?”

“No,” Maya replies, confused. “What’s going on?”

Monty breezes past her puzzlement and barrels on with his rapid-fire questions. “How did you get here? Were you followed? Did you follow all the procedures I gave you?”

“Of course I did,” Maya answers in an affronted tone. “I followed all the procedures you told me to: ditched the phone, took public transportation halfway, then doubled back and got here on foot. Don’t worry. The people in Mt. Weather have no idea that I’m here,” she assures him.

Monty pinches the bridge of his nose and takes deep breaths, trying not to let the flare of irritation spiking in his chest get the better of him. He supposes she’s right. Normals don’t have to worry about their actions the way they do, carefully avoiding unwanted attention and watching every step they make. Still, Jasper’s former girlfriend, and all the baggage that comes with her, is the exact opposite of what he needs right now.

“I thought we agreed that you'd only come for emergencies only,” he says with a sigh. “You know they're watching you.”

“This _is_ an emergency,” she insists, pulling his hands down to look at him.

The hint of desperation in her words grabs Monty’s attention, and upon closer inspection, he realizes that he’s wrong. Maya doesn’t look the same as before; she looks worse. The shadows under her eyes are darker. Her dark, frizzy hair is duller. She’s lost some weight from her already slim frame, and there’s a tremble in her voice that he’s only once heard before: the day she told them, with shaking limbs and fear in her eyes, that she had seen Raven’s and his names on Dr. Tsing’s charts for Psychic experimentation.

“What’s going on?” he asks on sudden alert. His mind flits to all the possibilities, ranging from news about Octavia’s mom to Maya herself. The worrying thought that she’s been compromised as their insider source in the Mountain pops into his mind, but he dismisses it because Maya wouldn’t be so thoughtless as to come here if that were the case.

Maya looks over his shoulder, to the back of the bar. “Where's Raven?” she deflects, craning her head.

The sound of the television’s broadcast echoes in the room as Monty searches for an answer to that question.

_[“…cautions its citizens to stay inside while authorities search for suspects and the investigations continue. All Unity Day festivities have been cancelled until further notice…”]_

The growing fear in the pit of his stomach churns at the words ‘search for suspects.’ He knows without seeing the screen that they have escalated the explosion from an accident to an attack. It’s only a matter of time before he either sees a report of his friends’ deaths or a call for their capture. Monty doesn’t know if he can handle either without breaking down.

But he does know what he has to do next, even if it pains him to do it.

“I don't know,” Monty tells Maya truthfully, “but I know she’s in trouble, and we both know that means you need to go.”

“Wait, Monty, no,” she argues as he tries to usher her back to the front door.

“The city is going into lockdown and if you’re found missing, they’ll come looking for you. They know your connection to us. This is the worst place for you to be right now.”  _And if they track her here, the Dropship won’t be safe anymore. It won’t be good for either of them._

“Please…”

“It is _safer_ this way. I don’t want you to get caught, Maya. Who knows what they’ll do to you?”

_*THUMP THUMP THUMP*_

They freeze at the sound. Monty puts a finger to his lips, silencing Maya with a look.

“Who is it?” he calls.

Octavia’s panicked voice sounds through the door. “Monty, open up!”

“Octavia, thank God,” he says, opening the door to let them in.

A towering, dark-skinned man with a tattoo on his neck almost mows Monty over as he carries an unconscious Raven in his arms. Octavia shuts the door after them, locking all three deadbolts as fast as she can. Monty blanches at the sight of their sooty clothes and the dark red smears all over Octavia’s lap, but she motions to Raven, and Monty’s heart catches in his throat.

“Oh my God, Raven!” Maya gasps.

“Maya?” Raven’s voice scratches like sandpaper, but Monty exhales at the sound. _She’s alive._

“You’re Maya?” Octavia asks in surprise.

The man holding Raven rears back. “I’ve seen you before. You’re from Mt. Weather,” His voice is wary, and he looks at Octavia in alarm. “She’s not one of us.”

“No, Lincoln, she is,” Octavia rushes. “Maya’s a Normal but she helped them escape.”

“She’ll help,” Raven mumbles against his shirt.

“Lincoln, you have to trust me. Like I trusted you, remember?” Octavia says in a soft voice. “She’s on our side."

“She’s a medical student with surgical training. Right, Maya?” Monty adds, not wanting to waste any time.

Maya’s head bobs furiously. “We need to get her upstairs. Quickly, now, go.”

Lincoln heeds the command, and they race up the stairs. Monty makes a mental note to interrogate Octavia later, as he remembers the way she and Clarke reacted when they thought he was describing Lincoln in Clarke’s chess piece vision, and…

Wait. Clarke. She isn’t here.

“Where’s Bellamy and Clarke?” he asks in alarm.

“At a safe house,” Octavia answers as they sweep into the apartment. “They’re with Lincoln’s friends in TonDC.”

Monty’s eyes widen as he reads between the lines of her answer, and _holy shit, the Resistance is in his house._ Octavia and Raven have brought the Resistance into their home.

But before he can panic over that news as well, he sees the protective hold with which Lincoln carries Raven through the apartment and the gentle way he lays her out on her bed. More important things are at stake, like Raven’s life, and he shoves all other thoughts away.

“She’s fading fast,” Maya says, checking Raven’s eyes with the flashlight she pulls out of her bag. “What happened?”

“She got shot in the back.” Octavia wrings her reddened fingers and hovers worriedly at the foot of the bed.

“When?”

“Right after she did that,” she replies, pointing at the television.

Maya turns to look at the news that Lincoln has just turned on, at the aerial shot of the flattened Ark U warehouse, and she shakes her head. Raven moans from the bed, face buried into her pillow as Maya starts to peel away the blood-crusted shirt and examine her wound.

Monty kneels at the head of the bed and places his face next to Raven, brushing the hair away from her sweaty brow. “It’ll be okay, Rae. Just hang in there,” he whispers. “Maya’s gonna fix this.”

Raven lets loose another muffled groan into her pillow, and Monty looks up at Maya with desperate, hopeful eyes. “You can fix this, right?”

“This is bad,” Maya frets. “I think she’s bleeding internally but I can’t perform surgery on her, not without proper equipment, anesthesia, extra blood. We don’t even know how deep the bullet is without a scan. If it’s lodged somewhere and I take it out, she might bleed out.”

Monty gulps back his terror and shuts his eyes against the thought. He can’t do this again, can’t watch another person in his family bleed to death in his arms.

“If we’re going to do this here, we’re going to need a Stitch,” she finishes.

“I have a friend,” Lincoln supplies, and Monty wants to cry in relief. “He can be here to help. Can you help her until then?”

Maya nods, spurred on by the hope they’ve been handed. She starts to bark orders, rummaging through her bag for supplies and her medkit. 

“I need you to get warm water and extra towels. Monty, you still have that stuff I gave you from last year?” He bobs his head anxiously. “Good. I need that and some alcohol.”

“Stay with her,” Octavia tells Monty. She turns to Lincoln. “You get the towels and water from the bathroom. Second door on the right. I’ll get the medicine.”

Monty returns his focus to Raven and rests his forehead against hers, willing her to stay awake.

“It'll be okay,” he whispers again, trying not to remember the last time they’ve been in this position. 

He picks up her hand, lacing their fingers together, and squeezes it tightly. Her eyes crack open at the motion. He gives her a watery grin.

“Hey there, sunshine.”

“Neeeeeeeerd,” she banters back with a sleepy smile.

“Yeah, it's me. What happened, Rae?” he asks.

Raven closes her eyes and widens her dazed grin. “I made it go _booooooooom_ ,” she replies, mimicking an exploding sound, air whooshing from her mouth, and Monty almost laughs because, of course she did.

Then her face contorts in pain, her body seizing up. Raven stifles a scream into her pillow, gripping Monty’s hand like a vise.

“Guys, hurry!” he calls.

Maya rushes to their side, carrying two syringes in her gloved hands. She hands one to Monty and fills the other with a clear liquid from a vial. Octavia rushes to join them, with Lincoln close at her heels carrying a basin of water and towels under his arm.

“Hold her down,” Maya orders. “I need her arm.”

Octavia drops the medicine onto the pillow next to Raven and climbs up on the bed. Careful to avoid the open wound on Raven’s back, she leans her weight across her shoulders, while Monty pulls Raven’s arm away from her body, as still as he can without hurting her more. 

Maya injects Raven with the syringe, and Monty feels her body relax, growing still with the slow close of her eyes. Octavia eases up when Raven passes out completely and cocks a questioning look at Maya.

“Sedative for the pain,” she answers, switching out syringes and motioning for the medicine Octavia brought. “She’ll be out for a while but she won’t feel a thing.”

Maya fills the new syringe with the rusty colored liquid. Monty watches as she moves with steady hands and injects the long needle into the blood-soaked skin near the fleshy wound.

“What is that?” Lincoln asks.

“Coagulant to slow the bleeding until your Stitch friend comes.”

“How long can she last?”

“Provided the sedative lasts, she won’t move for at least four hours, but the faster he gets here, the better. She won’t last to the morning without some real help.”

“Nyko can be here before then.”

Monty leans back with a sigh and releases Raven’s hand. Lincoln holds out a hand and helps Octavia off the bed.

“Hi, by the way. I’m Octavia,” she introduces to Maya with a weary sigh. “Good to finally meet you in person. Wish it were under better circumstances, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Monty casts a glance at Octavia and Lincoln, eying their ripped, dirty clothing and blood-stained hands.

_Right. Time for some answers._

“You guys should clean up,” he announces, standing with a determined look. “I can see if I have some extra clothes.”

“I’ve got her,” Maya assures him, gesturing to the towels and water.

“C’mon. I’ll get you some towels from my bathroom,” he says and leads them out of Raven’s room.

Monty crosses the apartment over to his side, far from Maya’s hearing range; however, instead of his bedroom, he directs them into the sound-proofed room he uses as his study, modified to block out noise when he doesn’t want to be bothered while Sniffing objects for research. He shuts the door and squares his shoulders as he turns around to face Octavia and her Resistance fighter friend.

“All right,” he demands, folding his arms in front of his chest. “Tell me everything— starting with what happened to Bellamy and Clarke.”

*~*~*

_She feels the sun on her face. Daylight streams through towering trees, and the sweet smell of clean air fills her lungs. There’s a scent of wildflowers on a breeze. She feels free._

_Then it all disappears with a loud explosion. She can feel the heat from the blast, the force of it blowing her clothes against her body. Someone screams a terrified shout; then they’re running. Running fast, running far on unfamiliar ground, from what she can’t see._

_The questions of where, what, why, how and who all cross her mind, and only when she really considers them does her sprint grind to a halt. She can’t put her finger on the answer. The urgency melts away._

_And that’s when it hits her: she’s caught in a dream._

_The impressions of feelings, the way the images flash— they’re specific yet vague in that way dreams are. Scratch the surface, and logic tears it apart. None of it is real._

_The dream tilts._

_Clarke’s floating now, an observer of scenes in a life that’s hers, but not quite right. Her mother wraps her father in her arms as he smiles up at her from his seat. The scene is familiar and oh so warm, but it’s off. Their clothes are wrong. They’re in a metal room, which clashes against all the memories of her childhood home and the warm colors painted on the walls._

_The scene shifts again. She’s fighting with her mother— over what she can’t remember, but she’s angry and frantic and afraid for her life. “This gives you a chance to live,” her mother insists in fervent whispers._

_Then she sees the earth from space, majestic and beautiful in all its glory. And she’s falling, falling, falling..._

Clarke wakes, opening her eyes to a quiet, darkened room. 

Disoriented from her dream, she rubs the heels of her palms into her eyes. It’s been awhile since she’s woken and remembered her dreams, and snippets of this one still linger, of metal hallways, towering trees, and endless skies of glittering stars as she falls through outer space. Clarke shakes the last wisps of the dream away; then she remembers: the fire, the bomb, the drugging in the van. Her body shoots up in high alert.

She squints in the darkness, taking quick stock of her surroundings. Faint light of a darkening sky filters through the small windows near the high ceiling, far too high for her to reach. There's another bed next to hers, and she can make out a sleeping form on it. Bellamy, she realizes, sprawled on the bed. Finally, Clarke’s eyes land on a switch on the wall. She scrambles out the bed, throwing off the sheets, and flicks on the light. 

What she finds is unexpected to say the least.

The fluorescent light overhead reveals a clean, if sparsely furnished room. Definitely not the prison cell she was expecting given the manner in which they arrived...wherever it is that they are.

Or if it is a prison, it’s the nicest one she’s ever seen. None of the furniture is bolted down— not the bed she woke up in with soft, clean sheets, not the table of bread, fruit, and water— and the tiled floor is swept, tidy and neat. Her backpack and jacket hang on hooks near the door and her shoes sit below them, like they belong there and someone has stored them in their place. There's even a television next to the food.

Still, Clarke can’t shake the niggling in the back of her head that something’s off. She walks to the door and tests it, only to find it's locked from the outside. She jiggles the knob more forcefully, fumbles at it with her fingers, then tries to kick the door down, but nothing seems to budge.

They’re trapped.

“Bellamy,” she hisses, crossing the room, then shaking his shoulder. “Bellamy, wake up.”

He groans, wincing against the brightness as his eyes open. Clarke waits for a second for his eyes to adjust and awareness to settle in, and when it does, Bellamy jumps out of his bed as if doused by bucket of ice water.

“Where are we?” he demands, casting quick looks around the room.

Clarke presses her mouth in a grim line. “I don’t know. But we need to get out of here. They’ve locked us in.”

“How long have we been out?”

She glances at her father’s watch and notes that it’s been hours, past the afternoon into the evening.

“It’s almost seven.”

“Your head wound’s gone,” Bellamy observes.

“Huh?” Clarke blinks in confusion.

“From before,” he says, pointing to her head. “You had a bandage before but the cut’s all gone.” Bellamy examines his right bicep, flexing it and twisting to get a better look. “Bullet wound’s been healed too. A Stitch must have come by and healed my arm.”

Clarke looks down at her body and realizes that she’s wearing a clean shirt too. The bruises from landing on Lexa twice no longer ache, and all the tiny cuts on her arms and face are gone. The reminder of the Commander stirs up a mixed bag of conflicting emotions, but Clarke shoves them away to focus on the situation at hand.

“What do you think they want with us?” she asks. “Why give us food and Stitch us up, and then hold us prisoner?”

Bellamy crosses his arms in front of his chest with a glare. “Well it’s pretty obvious why they want you.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. _Great. This fight again._

“I don’t want anything to do with them,” she says, walking away to grab her things from the door.

“This is your fault, you know,” he accuses, flicking his wrist to Call his own shoes into his hand. “I never should have listened to you or Octavia.”

Clarke huffs as she puts her jacket on. “You didn’t have to come along. Octavia and I could have done this by ourselves.”

“I swear if anything happens to her…” Bellamy threatens.

“Yeah, well, let’s find her first. You can yell at me later,” she counters, brushing past him.

“I don’t want anything to do with you once this is over,” he shoots back. He pulls hard on his laces with every word. “You’re a liar and a Pusher.”

“Fine,” she says, unzipping her bag with a jerk. She wraps some napkins around the rest of the bread and places it inside. “But you’re wrong. I’m not a Pusher.

“So you admit that you lied that about your parents being Jake and Abby Griffin?”

Clarke halts at the mention of her father, apple frozen mid-air in her hand. She never told Bellamy her father’s name.

“How do you know my parents?” she asks, side-stepping the accusation.

“Everyone knows your parents. Your parents were like the poster couple of Normals and Psychics getting along. Just because none of us knew what you looked like doesn’t mean we didn’t know your name. You all lived in Mt. Weather.”

Clarke’s breath hitches at the certainty in his voice, filling her head with doubt. _Is it possible she grew up in the base without knowing?_

Then she remembers the vision Cage Pushed in her brain, and she brushes aside the possibility. _Cage must have gotten to him too._

“You’ve got it flipped,” she corrects. “My dad is the Watcher. My mom is the Normal. She was a surgeon, and she’s dead.”

“Stop lying,” he growls.

“It’s the truth. I saw her die,” she insists.

Part of her wants to scream at him, because he doesn’t understand. His mother is alive. He hasn’t had to watch his mother slip away in front of him, holding on long enough to say goodbye but sliding away too quickly to save. He can’t fathom the hole that leaves, the kind that can’t be filled because Bellamy only knows the fear of that kind of loss, not the reality itself. It’s not something that can be faked or lied about so easily.

They glare at each other for a long pause. In the face of a ticking clock and his stubborn refusal to even try to understand, Clarke switches tactics. They’ve got no time to spare.

“Look, this is getting us nowhere. Octavia and Raven might be out there. Now are you going to keep arguing with me, or are you going to help me get us out of here?”

Bellamy’s jaw clenches in anger, but the mention of his sister is enough for reason to win over. He steps forward towards the locked door, and Clarke steps back as he deepens his stance.

“Wait,” she says suddenly, pulling his arm back.

Bellamy raises an eyebrow at her and shoots her a look.

“Take out the hinges first. I tried kicking down the door earlier and it didn’t work. Anything you can do to loosen the door might help,” she explains, drawing back her hand.

“Okay,” he says and concentrates on Throwing two quick energy blasts at the hinges.

The wood splinters from the impact, enough so the hinges hang off. Clarke pulls the metal off the door with a forceful yank and steps back behind Bellamy. Then he pulls his arms back, raising them high above his head, and Throws a strong shockwave at the whole door. The force of the blast spins the wooden door open, and they make a run for it, entering a dimly lit hallway.

“Which way do we go?” Bellamy asks as they reach the end of the hall.

Clarke falters, trying to concentrate and force a vision to appear in her mind to no avail.

“Come on, you keep saying you’re a Watcher,” he says impatiently. “Left or right?”

Clarke thinks about the light from the window. It has to mean that the room they were in was along the outer wall. “Left,” she guesses, and they run down the left corridor.

It leads them to an open training room filled with Movers performing exercises.

“Shit,” Bellamy curses, as Clarke slams into him. “Other way, run!” he shouts, spinning back around and shoving her back the way they came.

But guards step into the hallway, blocking the exit, and Bellamy and Clarke back up, cornered at every turn.

Bellamy stands in front of Clarke, arms stretched, for a terse moment. “Get ready,” he warns.

“Clarke!” a voice calls from behind the guards in the hallway.

Using the distraction, Bellamy charges into the crowd of Movers, Throwing up Shields and Blasting a pathway for him and Clarke. She struggles to keep up, running as fast as her legs can carry her. They’re almost to the door on the other side of the room, when Clarke feels her body pull to a stop, lifting a few feet in the air.

Surrounded by Movers and guards, Clarke hangs her head. She exhales in annoyance before casting a glance at Bellamy hovering at her side. She’s really getting tired of this.

“I told you we should have held them in a cell,” Anya’s voice drawls as she and Lexa cross into view.

“They are guests, Anya, not prisoners,” Lexa replies. “And Ryder, you can put them down.”

A hulking figure, who looks like he could be Gustus’ twin, stands with his arms outstretched. “They’ll attack again, _Heda_ ,” he intones, suspicion laced in his voice.

“Put us down,” Clarke threatens, a mix of humiliation and frustration bubbling to the surface.

“You shouldn’t have run,” he snaps back.

 ** _*I said, PUT US DOWN.*_** Clarke screams.

The strangest sensation fills her as she locks eyes with the Mover holding them up. Her words reverberate in her mind instead of her ears. Black spots fill her vision as she stares him down, willing him to listen to her command.

And then the Mover blinks, all the hostility gone, and complies without a sound.

Bellamy and Clarke fall onto the mats in a sudden drop. When Clarke stands up, the circle of people around her step back, giving them a wide berth. Ryder shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck, and one of the guards pulls him away as Clarke takes a step toward him. They stare at her with more than a little fear, all except Anya and Lexa who cast her wary looks.

“Told you.” Bellamy’s voice drips with self-righteous disdain, but also a hint of uncertainty. He brushes his jeans off, avoiding her eyes. “Pusher.”

Clarke is too shocked at her own actions to respond. Her heart pounds in bewilderment and fear. _What the hell did I just do?_

Brushing off Anya’s hand on her shoulder, Lexa steps forward, hands up. “I apologize for keeping you waiting, Clarke,” she says in a neutral, calm voice. “The Stitches took longer than anticipated in healing my wounds. I was on my way to you just now.”

Unnerved by things about herself she cannot answer, Clarke clings to easier questions with answers she knows she will find. “Where are we?” she asks.

Lexa looks around at the audience of Movers around them. “Why don’t I escort you back to your room, and I’ll explain everything?” she says, holding out a hand.

Clarke exchanges a look with Bellamy. She can see the tendons working in his jaw, his eyes hard with anger, but he nods to lead the way.

Lexa and Clarke walk side by side, past prying and fearful eyes, back into the corridor. Anya and Bellamy follow behind them, close enough that Clarke can feel their angry stares boring into the back of her head. Once out of hearing range, Lexa breaks the tense silence.

“I trust you’ve been taken care of as well,” she inquires, sneaking a glance at Clarke’s forehead.

Irritation spikes in Clarke at the congenial tone of her voice.  “Oh yeah, sure. I was able to get in a nice five-hour nap thanks to the _drugs_ you gave us,” she snarks, letting her anger show this time. “Where have you brought us, Lexa?”

“And where’s Octavia and Raven?” Bellamy adds, brushing past them as they enter the room.

Lexa stalls, eying their handiwork at the door instead. Then she turns back to them to answer. “The drugging was an unfortunate necessity. It is protocol for any outsiders who enter this area.”

“You brought us to your headquarters in TonDC?” he says in surprise.

Anya raises an eyebrow at Lexa, which is confirmation enough. Clarke rolls her eyes at their silent exchange.

“C’mon. Give us some credit. It’s not exactly like it’s a secret that this place is Resistance fighter central.”

Clarke catches the side-eyed glare Anya sends her way, but Lexa remains even and calm.

“Our exact location is known only to a select few of the Resistance. Even fewer know that I am the Commander,” she explains. “You understand, I’m sure, the need for secrecy given Division’s constant surveillance, especially given the uptick of reapings of Psychics in the last six months.”

Understanding sets in, but annoyance still buzzes at Clarke’s pride.

“You could have just asked. Before you drugged us.”

“Again, I apologize, but it was for your own protection. We are at war, and precautions had to be made. And from what I was told, given your agitated states,” she says with a pointed look at Bellamy, “we couldn’t be sure.”

“I’ll show you agitated state,” Bellamy begins, leaning towards Lexa, but Clarke pulls him back. He shrugs off her hand with a huff.

“Fine. Just bring us to Octavia and Raven, drug us again or whatever, and drop us off once we’re out of TonDC. We’ll find our own way back to our people,” Clarke reasons.

“Octavia, Raven and Lincoln have not checked in yet. They aren’t here,” Anya says, marching across the room and turning on the television to the news. “We suspect this is why.”

_[“--in response to today’s terrorist attack on the Unity Day Parade. President Wallace held a press conference, condemning the attack, calling it ‘an act of violence against the very people of Polis.’”]_

The program cuts to Dante Wallace at the podium. His full head of white hair and the poorly concealed bags under his eyes show the weariness in his old age, but unlike his son, the President has a kind face, filled with compassion. His blue eyes are sharp with wisdom, and when he speaks with his old folksy charm, it is easy to see how he has held his power, presenting himself as the calm voice of reason in a world of warring factions and violence.

_[“This is a horrific tragedy. Not only for the lives lost but the fact that this was an attack on young students' work during a celebration of different people uniting as one people. This only underscores the degree to which these terrorists fear true cooperation and peace between Normals and Psychics. The Twelve Clans’ so-called Resistance movement is nothing more than a sham under which these cowards hide to justify unconscionable actions…”]_

“Of course they’re painting _us_ as the bad guys,” Bellamy complains.

“What did you expect? We’re the ones who blew it up,” Anya points out.

“They attacked first!” he counters.

“This has been playing on loop for the last hour. Given the alert that’s been put out on all of us,” Lexa gestures to the television, “we believe they’ve chosen to lay low somewhere else instead of coming here.”

Clarke’s eyes widen as Bellamy and Raven’s photos appear on the screen, headshots which were obviously pulled from a Mt. Weather file. Next to them are blurry cropped screenshots of Lexa, Anya, Gustus, Indra, Lincoln and Octavia. Their features are unclear and out of focus, but it’s unmistakably them. No one mentions any of their names, but Clarke sneaks a look at Bellamy’s stricken face, filled with concern that Octavia’s picture is on the screen at all.

_[“…If you see any of these individuals, please notify authorities and stay away from them at all costs. Do not attempt to approach them. These criminals are armed and dangerous, and they have kidnapped one of our citizens.”]_

Then Clarke’s picture flashes on the screen, a headshot of her own with the logo of Mt. Weather behind her, just like Raven’s and Bellamy’s photographs.

A twisted, tangled knot forms in her chest when she sees her own face staring back at her, another nail in the coffin that Bellamy is right and everything she knows about herself is wrong. The room feels like it’s spinning again, like her life is collapsing like a house of cards.

She swallows down her fear as she watches the screen with wide eyes, but an involuntary chill runs through her with every words Wallace speaks. It’s as though he knows she is watching as he looks directly into the camera.  

_[“…And to the terrorists who have threatened our citizens, know this: we will do everything in our power to find you, take you down, and bring you in. Whatever it takes...”]_

Someone touches her shoulder, and Clarke jumps at the contact. Lexa withdraws her hand, but continues to look at her with soft concern.

“We’re safe here, Clarke,” she reassures. “No one knows this place but those friendly to our cause, and we are being Shadowed by at least six different Psychics.”

“Yeah, meanwhile, my sister is out there, and her picture is everywhere,” Bellamy interjects, pacing back and forth, running a hand through his hair.

“She’s safer the further away she is from us. We’re the primary targets, not her,” Anya states in a flat voice.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because we’re with Clarke,” Lexa says simply. “They didn’t mention any of names. That means they don’t know who we are, and for some reason, they don’t want your names out there either. Even Clarke’s. It also means they’ll be searching for us covertly, individual door-to-door manhunts. That gives us time.”

“For what?” Clarke asks.

“To redirect them and send them on a wild goose-chase. We’ve already spread the word to pass misinformation around and send Division in circles.”

Anya turns to Bellamy, offering an almost reassuring look. “Lincoln knows our protocol. He’ll find a safe place, and Octavia is resourceful. She’ll Shadow them from Division.”

Lexa nods her head in agreement. “We just have to lay low for a while until the curfew lifts and they make contact with us.”

“And then you let us go?” Clarke asks cautiously.

“Of course. You aren’t prisoners here. This is just a safe place to rest until we hear word from Lincoln.”

Clarke wants to believe Lexa’s words, but there’s something that doesn’t quite add up. She trusts Lexa, the girl who gave Clarke her gun when she had no real reason to trust Clarke would give it back, but the Commander who lied and drugged her is another story.

Lexa shifts under Clarke’s scrutinizing gaze, drawing her shoulders back and straightening to full height. Clarke watches the transformation from the girl into the Commander, the hardened mask of indifference falling before her eyes.

“In the meantime, we require some answers. Bellamy, how did you know that Cage was a Pusher?” she demands.

“Because Abby Griffin would never help that man.”

“And you know this how?”

Clarke twists to face Bellamy. She’s curious to hear this answer too.

Bellamy flicks his eyes at Clarke for a moment before answering. “Because she helped us hide Octavia. Gave her an annual physical every year, treated her when she was sick. My mother wouldn’t trust anyone who had even a hint of loyalty to Division.”

Anya’s eyebrows furrow. “So you made the jump from that to they’re making Pushers out of Normals?”

“It’s the serum. If Clarke is who she says she is, if she’s Jake and Abby’s kid, then she grew up in the mountain as a Normal like her father.”

He finally turns to Clarke and looks her straight in the eye. “When Cage said the serum was Abby’s, I figured the serum makes Normals into Pushers, and that's why they've been after you. You must be Patient Zero.”

Clarke lets his words sink in. Even though she doesn’t remember stepping foot in Mt. Weather, she can’t discount the possibility that someone Wiped the memory of it. Her picture on the screen feels like irrefutable proof of it. Then there’s the gun that she shot with unexplainable accuracy, a skill she couldn’t have learned anywhere but with Division. Bellamy’s theory does fit most of the questions she has. Even so…

“So how do you explain the serum giving Lexa fireballs?” she asks.

“It must affect us differently than Normals,” Bellamy replies.

“Okay, but that doesn’t explain how I got accurate visions that led to Raven, Monty and Octavia,” she counters. “Or why I thought I was a Watcher living in Polis this entire time. Wipers take away memories. They don’t replace them with new ones, and they certainly don’t give people visions.”

The more she thinks about it, the more his theory falls apart, and Clarke can’t help her voice from rising as she fights against the idea that her entire life is a lie. “And why do I have these specific memories? I have a memory of my mother dying next to me in a hospital bed. Cage wouldn’t have Pushed a memory contradicting his own Push. Even if Division had another Pusher, why would they put memories of me _fearing_ Division? The theory doesn’t fit.”

“Then what’s your big theory, huh, Princess?” Bellamy challenges.

In the back of her head, Clarke can think of one explanation, but she doesn't want to believe that it's true.

“All right,” Anya interrupts, stepping between them. “We have the information we need. We’ll leave you to your childish squabbling.”

“Whatever, I need some air,” Bellamy huffs and stalks out the door.

Clarke watches as Lexa and Anya engage in another silent exchange of meaningful glances, until Anya rolls her eyes. Whatever that was all about, Lexa has won. Anya shoots another unexpected glare at Clarke, ripe with warning, and exits the room.

Left alone with Lexa, Clarke remains at a loss, still trying to make sense of everything that just happened. For a brief moment, the only sound in the room is the news on the television. As the news anchor continues to broadcast the coverage of the mess they’ve made of the Ark University warehouse, she glances at her face still plastered on the screen. _Her entire life can’t be a lie. It just can’t be._

Lexa stands next to her, the girl this time, not the Commander. She doesn’t touch Clarke, but her words are careful and comforting.

“We’ll have more information soon, Clarke,” she promises. “The medics are still going over my bloodwork, and when they’re done, we can figure it all out then. For now, I suggest that you eat some food and get some rest.”

She eyes the broken door again, shaking her head with a rueful sigh. “I’ll send someone by to repair the door so you can have some privacy.”

Clarke still senses that Lexa is hiding something, but there’s a sincerity in her voice that Clarke’s tempted to believe is real, even though it all seems too good to be true.

“Okay, Lexa. Thanks,” she says, and watches Lexa withdraw into the hallway.

Finally alone with nothing but her thoughts, Clarke plops down on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. _Another day, another rug pulled out from underneath her, upending her entire world and shattering everything she knows._

She takes a deep breath to push down the turmoil in her mind, because she can’t afford to lose her head. There’s an answer here, for all of this; she just can’t see it yet. The truth is a shifting floor, moving like sand beneath her feet, and Clarke just has to sort through what is real and solid ground to stand on.

  1. _Her name is Clarke Griffin._
  2. _Her parents are Jake and Abby Griffin._
  3. _She is a Pusher, not a Watcher._
  4. _Mt. Weather may or may not have been her home._
  5. _Her mother may not be dead._



Out of habit, Clarke rubs the face of her father’s watch, running her fingers along the grooves. She wants her father; she wants some answers, and the longer time stretches out without either, the more dread she feels. It feels like time is running out, and she needs the answers fast before the world starts to turn upside down again and closes in on her.

Clarke curls up into a small ball in the bed and tries to remember the feeling of safety she felt with her family in her dream. It feels childish because it isn’t real, but her dreams make as much sense as her life does right now, and she’ll take comfort wherever she can find it. She shuts her eyes, tears spilling out of the corners as they close, and tries to block out the outside world around her.

_[“…A curfew has been issued until 7:00am tomorrow morning while manhunts begin for the suspects. First Son and Head of Division’s Capture Task Force, Cage Wallace, has stated that troops stand ready to be deployed to disperse any unlawful resistance to the curfew…”]_

 

END ACT II

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: Act III is undergoing a restructure edit, so I'll be posting a new chapter 2 weeks from now instead of next week. Don't worry though; while the betas are looking over the revised chapters, I'll still have a little something for you guys next Thursday to tide you over. Call it a supplement if you will. Thanks for understanding.


	7. Act III: Destiny's Child (1/3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who may have missed it, here is a more in-depth rundown of Psychic types in this universe: [On the Classification of Powers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5202680). It's definitely more dense and fleshes out the science more than [the cheat sheet of powers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6188335) does. Look out for some easter eggs and clues that will play out in later chapters. :)

 

_*click*_

_[“—haven’t seen this kind of damage since TonDC was bombed back in ‘63 —”]_

_*click*_

_[“—what this means. Some are seeing it as the first of many attacks by the terrorist group known as the Twelve Clans—”]_

_*click*_

_[“—still unknown who the leader of this group is, but from tonight’s attack, we can only expect more violence—”]_

_*click*_

_[“—Mt. Weather is a concentration camp for Psychics! It’s a watered down version of the City of Light!”_

_“No it’s not. It’s a place for people with special powers can live with people just like them, but far away enough that they can’t do damage like they did tonight.”_

_“Separate but equal? Come on! That myth was debunked in the First Age. It’s a prison.”_

_“Then how do you explain Psychics who work there as Division agents? If it’s a prison, they’re the guards running it! The system—”]_

_*click*_

Maya shuts off the television, tired of the media pundits spinning stories around the truth. The rhythmic sound of Raven’s even breathing is a welcome change to all the noise and a calming force on Maya’s rattled nerves.

The chaos of Raven's entrance has all but subsided, but Maya’s thoughts linger on Octavia and the mysterious Resistance fighter. There’s still the matter of the Stitch, especially in light of the curfew President Wallace just announced. She supposes that’s what the hushed meeting between Monty and the two of them is all about.

Octavia Blake is…not what she expected from what Maya has heard about her. She’s bigger, somehow. Louder, more brash. For someone who’s lived in hiding her entire life, that girl is a force of nature. Maya doesn’t know how that got lost in translation in the last few weeks they’ve been sending messages back and forth. Still, it’s nice to put a face to the name of the girl whose mother she’s been helping. Maya can see why Raven and Monty want to help her.

As to why they’re helping the Resistance, though? She remains at a loss to find a reason for them putting themselves so directly in harm’s way.

Raven lets out a small whimper. Maya goes to her side, sitting on the bed. She strokes Raven’s hair, combing her fingers through black tresses, and smooths out the furrows on her forehead until they’re gone.  _Bad dreams,_ she thinks _. Hard to escape these days._

“How’s she doing?” Monty calls from the doorway.

“Stable. Any word from the Stitch?”

“No, but Lincoln said that the curfew shouldn’t be a problem.” He crosses in front of her and plops into the chair next to the head of the bed. “Apparently they have ways around it, whatever that means. As long as no other shit hits the fan, we should be good.”

Maya raises an eyebrow at his words.

“I’m paraphrasing,” he replies, closing his eyes in exhaustion. 

Maya taps her thumb nervously against her knee. It’s probably the wrong question to ask, considering why she’s here, but she can’t help but worry about Raven and Monty. _Are things so bad they’ve resorted to this?_ _What are they thinking getting involved with terrorists?_ She knows Division isn’t any better, but this is…so far away what she imagined they’d be doing with their lives.

“So you’re helping the Resistance, now?” she inquires, as innocently as she can.

Monty blinks an eye open. “I’m helping Raven and Octavia.”

“And the other man?”

“He's with Octavia.” Monty shifts his eyes away, and Maya feels the wall come up between them, brick by brick, as he refuses to elaborate. “The less you know about it, the better.”

 _And there it is_. He’s shutting her out.  _Looks like it’s back to old times._

Except it’s not. Because instead of the Collins’ tiny den, they’re in a fairly massive apartment for two people. 

In the fairly sized kitchen, a mismatched set of pots and pans hangs from the stove’s range hood. A free-standing whiteboard with Monty’s scribble hides in the corner of the living room, and a well-worn couch, with thinning fibers peeking out from under soft blankets, sits in front of a large television screen. First Age movie posters adorn one wall, while Raven’s collection of wrenches and tools are pinned up on another. A big, round dining table, cluttered with papers and coffee mugs, takes up a good chunk of the common space.

All together, it looks like a home, the kind all of them always talked about for years. 

And she's on the outside looking in.

Maya soaks it all in, and the more she thinks about it, the more questions she has. The Resistance involvement doesn’t make sense, because it looks like they have a good life here. One she aches to know more about.

“The bar looks great, by the way,” she compliments, trying to jumpstart the conversation again. “Business going well?”

“Well enough.”

Maya bites the inside of her cheek at his short response. “How’s Raven doing? I mean, before all this.”

“Her leg still gives her problems at night, but we make do.”

“You still using that contact I gave you for medical supplies?” she offers.

“No, we have one that isn’t connected to you.” Her face falls at that, but Monty doesn’t seem to notice. “Figured it keeps you safer. Can’t be traced back to you,” he continues.

“Ah,” she says, because what else can she say? She can’t fault the logic behind the decision. “Otherwise, though?”

“She’s doing okay. We’re all doing okay, Maya,” he sighs.

Maya doesn’t miss the flat tone in his voice, the way he’s placating her with answers she wants to hear, because she knows for a fact that they’re not ‘okay.’ She’s exchanged enough messages with Raven to read between the lines about the nightmares. She wants to ask how Raven is dealing with the loss of Finn, even though she knows a partial answer to that question. Jasper told her how Finn had been the one to look after Raven growing up and took her into their family. Everything she feels about Jasper’s death must be ten times worse for Raven, but she wants to know how bad it really is.

Monty shuffles closer to the bed, as if reading Maya’s thoughts. He strokes Raven’s hand in small circles with his thumb. The doctor in her can’t help but evaluate him as well, examining the dark circles under Monty’s eyes, the shagginess of his hair, which looks like it hasn’t seen a decent cut in months, and the paleness in his skin.  _He needs more sunlight. Does he even get out much now that they’re free?_   

“How about you, Monty?” she ventures. “Meet any cute boys lately?”

She cringes as the words escape her lips, because they’ve never been those kinds of friends. As expected, her fishing comment goes over like a lead balloon.

“Why are you here, Maya?” he asks with an impatient sigh. “What possessed you to sneak out of the Mountain and get yourself caught?”

“The Unity Day parade was the perfect cover. Everyone’s gone out to celebrate,” she defends.

“Yes, but why are you  _here_?” he repeats. “You didn’t even warn us.”

Maya grimaces at the hostility in his voice. Monty only barely tolerated her when they were living in Mt. Weather. She had hoped saving his life would have changed that, particularly because the favor she’s about to ask is huge, but his agitation since her arrival doesn’t bode well.

“I need your help. After you guys left, Dad got locked up, and I think he might be in trouble.” The words rush out in a single breath, as if ripping off the band-aid in one motion will help him take the news better.

Monty inhales a sharp breath. “Do they know that you're the one who helped us and snuck Jasper and Finn in?”

“No, they have no proof. But we used my dad’s card. Jasper…he timed it perfectly. Dr. Tsing was right in front of Dad when Jasper’s Shift reverted back to the playing card, and you know my dad. He’s a terrible actor. Everyone knows when he’s faking, so they knew he had no idea his card was a fake.”

“But they still locked him up?”

“It was a message to me. They can’t prove I stole it, so they put Dad in the Skybox to make sure I didn’t try to leave. I got taken off Dr. Tsing’s rotation and transferred to Dr. Griffin.”

Monty stares at her, absorbing the information dump she’s thrown into his lap. She tries to gauge his reaction, sees the anxiety building in his lean frame, but she doesn’t know how to read Monty’s face. She never has.

“Maya, why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t want you to worry.”  _I didn’t want you and Raven to stop talking to me._

“Well it  _is_  worrying,” he counters, a slight hint of hysteria in his voice. “This entire time you have been communicating with us.”

“And I’ve been careful,” she says, eyes narrowing. “They don’t know about the backdoor you built into their system.”

Monty’s face contorts in clear anger now. “You don’t know that. God, we never would have asked you if we had known they suspected you were involved.”

“Really,” she challenges, unable to keep the sardonic tone out of her voice. “And how would you have known about Aurora Blake without me? I don’t remember you still having friends in the Mountain.”

“You should have told us,” he admonishes.

She leans back, surprised at the vitriol of his reaction. “Why are you getting mad at me? I’m the one who is putting my neck out on the line every time I send you information.”

“I’m not…” Monty sighs, clenching his fists. “I’m not mad at you. I just don’t understand why you would put yourself in that position.”

Maya’s jaw drops. “How can you ask me that?” she asks, dark eyes flashing.

She can’t help the harshness in her voice. The audacity of the question burns inside her, and her face grows hot. After all these years of tiptoeing around the subject and biting her tongue for Jasper’s sake, she lashes out, because Jasper isn’t here anymore and it hurts  _so much_  that he’s gone.

“You’re Jasper’s  _family_. I  _care_  about you and Raven, even though you’ve  _always_  hated me and never approved of Jasper’s and my relationship. You’re my last connection to him. You  _have_  to live. You  _have_  to be happy. Otherwise…” She waves her arm in a hopeless arc.

Maya looks away, searching for something to fight against the undertow that threatens to pull her down and drown her in despair. Her eye drifts to a small frame sitting on Raven’s dresser across the room.

Unlike the rest of Raven’s bedroom, the top of the dresser is organized and clean, the few trinkets there neatly arranged around the picture, the centerpiece of the display. Maya doesn’t have to squint to recognize the photograph. She knows it’s the picture she took on Raven’s seventeenth birthday: Jasper making a gagging face while Finn kisses a beaming Raven on the cheek and Monty doubles over, pointing in delight at Jasper, the camera catching him mid-laugh.  

It was her gift to Raven. A family portrait of sorts, because cameras and film were restricted commodities for Psychics inside the base. Security reasons, they said. As far as she knows, it’s the only picture of the four of them in existence. Her heart twinges at the thought.

“If you aren’t happy, then what was the point?” she sighs.

“I never hated you,” Monty states after a beat.

Maya snorts in disbelief. “C’mon, Monty. You’ve never liked me.”

“I didn’t like that you were working with Tsing! You have been since you were fifteen!” he bellows suddenly, standing up and turning his back on her in frustration.

His shout bounces off the walls. It pushes her into silence, because she doesn’t know what to say to that. She adjusts Raven’s dressing in a needless motion, as she collects her thoughts and struggles to formulate an answer, the right words to explain.

“Dr. Tsing is the leading authority on Psychic physiology. That’s where the research is.” Monty turns and Maya looks up at him with pleading eyes, willing him to understand. “All I’ve wanted to be since I was a kid was a Psychic specialist. I wanted to find cures. Fix Bleeders, try to reverse what was done to them. Help other Psychics. But that’s not possible without access to the research.”

“And so that justifies doing nothing about the experiments?” he scoffs. “You knew they were happening. You knew most of them ended in death.”

“I didn’t know they weren’t voluntary,” she stammers. “Not until I saw you and Raven on the list.”

Monty crosses his arms in front of his chest and levels her with a look of accusation. “Come on. You’re smarter than that, Maya. You had to know. Deep down, you  _knew_.”

He looks her straight in the eyes. Maya feels the hot prick of shame under the intensity of his gaze, because there’s truth to his words.

There were times where she questioned the validity of their work but chose not to investigate. She recalls the first big case that got her noticed. President Wallace had suffered a sudden heart attack, and during the surgery, there had been complications. They were all scrambling to save the President because they had run out of his blood type. 

Maya had been the one to find the brain-dead Psychic with the matching blood type. She had been the intern insane enough to suggest using the Psychic’s blood for a transfusion, the transfusion that saved his life but cost the girl hers.

And yet, she didn’t question how the Psychic had even gotten there to the lab until it was all over. In the euphoria of saving the President’s life, she never thought to ask how a girl, who couldn’t be more than a couple years older than her, wound up as a brain-dead  _specimen_  in the lab until she saw the dead body. She had been so  _young_. 

When she asked, the lab medics told her not to feel bad, that the girl had been in a car accident and would have died anyway. The explanation never sat right with Maya. The girl’s body never showed the trauma from a car crash. Things didn't add up.

Yet Maya never pressed the issue, because to dig down for the truth would have been an inconvenience, a potential blemish on the accolades she’d received. She had been the hero of the day. Dr. Tsing had praised Maya’s ingenuity, and she had been thanked by the President himself.

But the image of the girl’s dead-eyed stare stayed with her, long after the glow of acknowledgment faded.

The reminder of her shortcomings and the scrutiny of Monty’s judging stare prove to be too much to handle.  Together with all the fears she has about her father and worry over Raven’s current condition, the tears spill out of her eyes without her permission. She tries to hide them, but she can’t.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffles, drops splashing against her hand. “I was young and stupid, and I listened to the adults who fed me lies, but I know better now. And I’m paying for it. My dad is paying for it. What more do you want?”

“That’s not…Shit.” Monty runs his hands over his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass.”

Monty leans over to the nightstand. He hands her a tissue box and she accepts, nodding her thanks. She wipes her eyes, flushing in embarrassment at her little breakdown.

“I didn’t mean to get angry at you. It’s just hard. The Mountain has taken so much from us. My parents, Jasper’s parents, Finn and Jasper.” He kneels in front of her and grasps her fingers. “I forget sometimes that you lost him too.”

“I miss him so much,” she cries, the kindness in his voice opening the floodgates. “You're all gone, and I’m all alone, left behind. And I wish…” She inhales deeply. “I wish I had something to hang onto, to remember him. Something tangible, you know?" She gulps back her sobs, taking deep breaths. "Sometimes I think I’m forgetting the sound of his voice. Or his goofy grin.”

Monty’s face softens. “The way his entire face would light up when you gave him new gadgets.”

“Or chocolate.”

“Or weed.”

Maya lets out a watery chuckle. “Or both. I swear, you two and your brownies. I still don’t know how you got away with that.”

Monty stands and dips his head, hiding a sheepish look under a mess of black fringe. “A guy’s gotta have some secrets,” he says with a quiet laugh.

A strange, comfortable hush falls between them. Monty fiddles with his gloves, and Maya plays with a piece of lint on the sheet, but for the first time, it isn’t awkward. It’s something new, something fragile and delicate, born from the release of years of pent up resentment on both their parts. Everything feels lighter. Maya almost wishes they’d had this fight sooner.

“I never hated you, Maya,” Monty begins again. “It just took a long time for me to trust you, because you were—"

“Not one of you,” she finishes.

Monty offers her a crooked smile. “You’re one of us now?”

The question is half apology, half peace offering, and the uncertainty in it almost makes her want to cry again, only this time in relief. She squeezes his knee and nods, because of course she wants in; of course she wants to belong.

“I’m sorry too,” she says, “for not warning you. I just didn’t have enough time before I found out.”

“Found out what?” he asks, pulling his chair closer as he sits and listens at her side.

Maya takes a deep breath. “Something’s happening in Mt. Weather. It’s hard to say exactly what now that I’m not in the restricted area of the lab anymore, but it’s bad.”

“I thought you got assigned to Dr. Griffin? She’s always in the lab.”

She shakes her head, her mouth pressed in a thin line. “Ever since her daughter and husband died in that explosion earlier this year, they’ve lightened her load and taken her off a lot of projects. They keep her mostly restricted to emergency care and pediatrics, since that was where she started. I guess it was just all too much for her, and they’re giving her a break.”

“Okay so what do you know?”

“I still have friends on Tsing’s rotation, and they told me that they’re doing tests on Normals. Not just Psychics anymore. And Monty, they’re coming back sick. Some have even died. Whatever they’re doing, it isn’t good.”

“And you’re afraid you and your dad are next.”

She nods. “As soon as I found out, I had to risk coming here. I need your help to disappear, the way you and Raven did. Hack your way in and do your magic, you know?”

“I can try, but it’s going to be tricky with everything that’s going on.” He gestures to Raven’s sleeping form. “We should wait for all this to die down.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Big things are happening. I don’t know what, but in the last six months, there have been almost four times the number of Bleeder teams sent out on capture missions than usual. But the Skybox isn’t getting any fuller.” She hesitates before voicing her fear. “I think they’re capturing Psychics on petty crimes just so they have more people to experiment on.”

Monty’s eyebrows crease together. “Isn’t Octavia’s mom in the Skybox?”

“Yes. So, it has to be now. We have to get them both out.”

Maya watches Monty stand, pacing back and forth in a small circle. He wraps his arms around his chest like he’s hugging himself, biting on the pad of his thumb in thought. It reminds her of all the times he’s done the exact same motions while trying to decide how much to fess up to the trouble his or Jasper’s latest harebrained scheme has gotten them into. A small pang of nostalgia hits her at the familiar sight. She waits, knowing he’ll speak when he’s ready.

“We’re already planning a rescue,” he announces.

Okay, she’s wasn’t expecting that. “What?” she sputters.

“Octavia has this friend; she’s with Bellamy right now, and she’s helping them break their mom out. We’ll get you and your dad out too. And Raven’s mom.” He speaks quickly, already spinning a new plan.

“Monty…” she tries to stop him.

He waves his hands in the air, cutting off her protests. “No, I know. She works for Division, and Raven hates her, but it’s her mom. We have to at least ask if she wants us to help her, right?”

“Monty…”

“When Raven wakes up, we tell her and—”

“Mirai Reyes is dead,” she blurts out.

Monty comes to an abrupt stop.

"She died two weeks ago.”

He backs into the chair and sits in shock. “Whoa.”

“That’s the other reason why I’m here.” Maya looks down at Raven in sympathy. “I thought she deserved to hear the news in person.”

It’s not a conversation she’s looking forward to— and she’s not even sure she knows how to begin. Raven’s relationship with her mother has always been so complicated.

“Do you know how…”

“Raven should be the first to find out,” she replies. “I just wish, for once, I could give her good news.” Monty sends her a sad look of understanding. She closes her eyes and sighs. “Why do our lives suck so much?”

All she wants is for everyone in her life to be happy, but it doesn’t seem possible. Maybe in another lifetime, but not here, not now. Happy endings aren’t for people like them.

Monty clears his throat, and Maya cracks open an eye to see the hesitant look on his face.

“So, there is this one guy,” he begins. She snaps to attention, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Before you get excited, I don’t even know if he likes other guys. We’re just friends.”

A warm feeling sparks in her chest at the piece of his life Monty’s offered to share. “Go on,” she encourages.

“His name is Miller.”

*~*~*

Lexa holds out her hand, willing a spark to ignite in her palm.

_Clear your mind. Concentrate on your breath. Focus on your intent._

A warm sensation starts to build in her fingertips and travels down her fingers, swirling in the center of her palm. Something crackles in the heat in her hand, then another. But the more Lexa focuses on Moving the particles together to generate a flame, the faster the sparks fizzle out into tiny wisps of smoke.

Lexa growls, kicking at her desk in frustration.

Nothing she does is working. She’s tried everything she could possibly think of to remember how she did it: meditation, visualization exercises, even a short nap in the futile hope that it would appear in her dreams. But she can’t seem to remember. In the warehouse, she shot fireball after fireball without even noticing, too blinded by her rage and fear for Gustus and Anya to pay attention. How she maintained the fire eludes her because of her goddamn emotions, and she wants to kick herself so fucking hard.

It’s doubly frustrating because of all the things she _can_ do now.  

After Artigas Stitched up her arm, the doctors went to work doing a whole slew of tests on her, trying to discern how the serum affected her body. She spent the better part of four hours in the training center Throwing object after object to test her powers. Within the third hour, she had garnered an audience of her personal guards as the items grew heavier and larger in size. By the time they had her juggling two cars while defending herself from the attacks of three Movers, Lexa finally called the spectacle to an end herself, stating that she had proven that she was in better than perfect health.

She’s more powerful now than she’s ever been before. But these damn fireballs are mystery to her.

Maybe it’s because she’s too distracted. Thoughts of Gustus’ recovering but still fragile condition plague her mind. Her only Watcher is still out there with civilians, unaccounted for, while a manhunt is looking for them. And then there’s the issue of Clarke and Bellamy. Lexa tries to push away the image of Anya’s reproachful face, reminding her of her duties as Commander and what she has to do.

Lexa takes a deep breath, calming her mind. _Stop acting like a child and concentrate._ She can do this. All she needs to do is wipe away all distractions.

“Hello?” a voice calls out from the hallway, interrupting her thoughts. “Is anyone there?”

She looks up at the sound. This wing is entirely off limits, set aside as her personal quarters. Only Anya and Gustus enter here uninvited. A wave of irritation washes over her, and she marches across the bedroom to the open door to confront the fool who dares to violate her privacy unannounced. Whoever they are, they will bear the brunt of her wrath for the interruption.

Her ire flares all the way to her fingertips, heat building in her palms, until she actually sees the culprit wandering her hallway. Her eyebrows fly up in surprise, all anger snuffed out.

“Clarke.”

“Lexa!” Clarke exclaims, startled by her appearance. _In my own home,_ Lexa thinks wryly.

“What are you doing here?”

“I got lost. This place is a maze. Where am I, exactly?”

She twists the bottom corner of her shirt hem around her fingers, and Lexa itches to still her hands. Her stomach does that flip again, like it did the first time when she noticed what Clarke is wearing. Clarke doesn’t know it, but she’s wearing Lexa’s favorite shirt, something she suspects Ryder didn’t realize when she told him to grab a clean shirt for Clarke from her locker.

It looks good on her. Comfortable in a way that prickles at Lexa’s chest, because it’s _her_ shirt. She tries not to think about the last time someone else looked so good in her clothes.

“These are my private quarters,” Lexa replies. A guilty look crosses Clarke’s face. “Were you looking for something?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…I just wanted to stretch my legs,” she finishes lamely.

It’s a flimsy excuse, transparent as day. Part of her wonders if Clarke’s wandering is a sign of her lack of trust. If perhaps Clarke is testing the limits of Lexa’s assurance that they aren’t prisoners.

Then, she catches Clarke hiding a yawn behind her hand. Lexa takes in the exhaustion in her frame, and she understands. There’s a tiredness in her eyes that Lexa recognizes is caused by a sheer inability to find rest, though not for lack of trying. It’s a feeling she knows all too well.

“Can’t sleep?” she guesses. Clarke nods. “Would you like some tea? I find that always that helps.”

“Sure.”

“Come. Let’s go to the mess. I’m sure we can find something there.”

She leads Clarke out of her private quarters at a quick pace. It isn’t that Clarke isn’t welcome; there’s just something about her presence in Lexa’s personal space that makes her nervous, like a breach of her defenses. _I just like my privacy_ , she rationalizes. _Nothing wrong with that._  

Thankfully, Clarke doesn’t seem to pick up on her discomfort. They navigate through the corridors in relative silence. Lexa feels Clarke’s curious eyes roaming around her, at the concrete walls and fluorescent lights, as they walk side by side.

“What is this place, anyway? Is it some kind of bunker?”

“It’s an old military silo from the days of the Psychic War. They used to train recruits here. We’ve since then expanded it to be much larger than it was, which is why we’re underground.”

“Underground? But we have windows in our room.”

“That’s the ground level you were looking at. That’s why they’re up so high. Only a couple rooms have natural light in them.” Lexa allows a small smirk on her face. “I told them to take care of you. I am glad they listened and gave you a room with a view.”

Clarke sends her a small smile at her joke. As they enter empty mess hall, Lexa flips on the lights and grabs two cups from the stack of clean dishes and trays near the entrance.

“This way,” she says, leading Clarke into the kitchen. Lexa sets the cups down and motions for her to sit at the large island in the middle of the room.

“I have tea in my own quarters, but they have a better selection here,” she explains, still trying to justify the reason for bringing Clarke all the way to the mess hall. For her part, Clarke doesn’t seem to care, content with studying Lexa as she moves around the kitchen.

Lexa fills the kettle with water from the sink while simultaneously Opening the cabinet to her left. She glances up and Floats the large box of tea over her shoulder to Clarke as she places the kettle on the stove. It isn’t until she turns the knob to light the fire that Lexa realizes the magnitude of her multitasking and how little concentrated effort she put into it.  _I can Move things without motioning first. Good to know._

As the water heats, she turns, standing across from Clarke on her side of the island. She hesitates, contemplating which approach she should take. For the first time in a long time, Lexa feels at a disadvantage. She needs Clarke on their side, more than Clarke needs her. She doesn’t know how to begin. She’s used to being in a position of power for negotiations, not the other way around.

After too many beats of silence, Lexa decides on a direct offensive to win Clarke over. She plants her hands on the counter and leans in.

“So. What is bothering you, Clarke?”

Clarke snorts. “You mean what isn’t?”

Lexa concedes her point. “What’s bothering you the most?” she amends.

“Just, everything. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. It’s like I can’t trust my own thoughts, my own memories. Everything I know…” Clarke looks down, frowning into the opened box of tea. “I’m a _Pusher_.”

The hint of fear in the shell-shocked way she says the word makes Lexa curious. “Does that make you afraid?” she asks.

“Shouldn’t I be?” Clarke replies. “Pushers were the first to be hunted and exterminated during the Psychic War.” She picks out a packet from the box and slides it over to Lexa.

“It also makes you rare and powerful,” she counters, catching the box and making a selection of her own.

“Powerful. Right.” Clarke’s shoulders slump as she leans against the metal counter, elbow propped up, chin on her hand. “I don’t even know how I did what I did earlier. Or how I didn’t know what I was before.”

“Muscle memory. You got your mind Wiped, but your body still remembers. And considering how well you’ve retained your skills, it’s likely you've always known you were a Pusher until the Wipe.”

“But why would I Wipe that knowledge about myself? Or anything to do with Mt. Weather? How did I get the memories I have? Did I Push myself? Is that even possible? And how did I get real visions if I’m not a Watcher?”

The kettle whistles, cutting off the flurry of questions Clarke has raised. Lexa doesn’t have any answers, but she knows what it feels like to have her entire world turned upside down in a flash. She turns the fire down and removes the kettle from the stove. Clarke’s eyes train on her as she fills the mugs up with steaming liquid. Carefully, she Slides a cup across the counter to Clarke.

“I don’t know the answers to your questions, but I promise you, we’re here to help,” she offers.

Lexa sips at her tea, the hot liquid burning her tongue. She winces from the heat. Then a thought crosses her mind.  _If she can Move particles fast enough to generate fire…_ She cups the mug in her hand and concentrates on Slowing down the particles in her drink.

“What are you doing?” Clarke asks.

“Watch.” After a few seconds, the steam ceases to rise. The cup grows cooler to her satisfaction. She takes a long swig from her drink, now the perfect temperature to warm her body without scalding her tongue.

“Do you want…” Lexa motions toward her cup, and Clarke nods. She reaches across the counter. Their fingers brush as she holds her mug, but Lexa’s concentration holds well enough to replicate the action.

“Thanks,” Clarke says. She lifts her cup up in a salute, then drinks her tea in contentment. “Is that a new trick from the serum?” she asks after a few sips.

“I just tested it out now,” Lexa admits. “Apparently I now have 'telekinesis on the thermo-molecular level.' Or at least that’s what the doctors say. Something about kinetic energy and electrical charges. I’m still adjusting to the new powers. They take some getting used to.”

Clarke lets out a sound somewhere between a sigh and an empty laugh. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

Lexa tilts her head at Clarke, giving her a long glance over. “You said you didn’t know how you Pushed Ryder, but did you mean to Push him or was it instinctual?”

“Instinct, but…" she pauses, nose wrinkling in thought, "it was the first time I was aware of it as it was happening.”

“What was it like?”

“Like I was shouting at him with my brain. Only I didn't mean to. It just happened.”

An idea flashes in Lexa’s head. Anya would kill her if she knew, but trust has to be built somehow. Someone has to take the first step. Lexa drains her cup, decision made.

“Would you like to try again?”

Clarke leans back on her stool, startled. “What?”

“Would you like to try Pushing me?” Lexa clarifies.

The confused look on Clarke’s face is her only response. Lexa waits patiently for an answer.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” she finally asks.

“I have been looking for you for the last five years, Clarke. It would be foolish to distance myself from you now.”

Clarke seems taken aback by the bluntness of her answer. Lexa cringes inside.  _Try sounding less like a stalker next time_ , she chastises herself.

“It was Foretold that you would fall from the sky and that my helping you would help us all,” she elaborates, hoping the logic will smooth over her explanation. “I didn’t expect you to fall on top of me, but we were fated to meet. It’s our destiny to help each other. So why should I be afraid?”

“I don’t believe in destiny,” Clarke dismisses. “Do you?”

Lexa chooses her words more carefully this time. “I believe that there is a reason for everything. I was chosen to be the  _Heda_  because a Watcher had a vision that I would lead our people and end this war. Some even say I am the reincarnated soul of the leader of the Twelve Clans.”

Clarke’s eyebrows furrow in surprise. “You actually believe in that Old Age reincarnation crap?”

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. They believe it, and because they do, they follow me. It is why I was taken from my family and bred from childhood to become the leader I am today.”

Lexa pauses, the fuzzy picture of her parents and siblings in her mind nothing more than a distant memory. A papercut of hurt slices through her at the realization that she can barely recall their faces.  She tries to shake it off.

“In the end, it doesn’t matter if I was fated to become this person or not. I’m here now, and I will end this war. There is no other option.  And I believe that you will help me.”

“Because destiny says I will," Clarke says flatly, skepticism dripping in every word.

“Because I see much of myself in you,” Lexa corrects. “The future may not be written in stone, Clarke, but some things are inevitable. Just as I was born to be the leader of this Resistance, so too were you born for this.”

“To what? Brainwash people into fighting your war?”

Lexa shakes her head. “To _lead_ them. Inspire them. And yes, sometimes, look people in the eye and tell them, ‘Go die for me,’ because that’s what _leaders_ do. It’s not just your powers as a Pusher. It’s everything about you. Look at the way you took control of the situation back at the warehouse. People look to you for answers, and you provide them. You are a born leader. Surely you must feel it.”

Clarke looks down at the bottom of her cup. “I’m not a soldier. I’m not built for war.”

“None of us are at first,” she replies softly.

“I still have to have to find my dad," Clarke insists. "And I promised I’d help break Bellamy's mom out of Mt. Weather.”

Lexa frowns. "You still want to help him. Even though it seems he doesn't want your help?" 

“Octavia does,” she says in a firm voice. “And I gave them my word.”

She wants to be frustrated at Clarke’s stubborn loyalty and her disregard for the more logical path; instead, she finds it admirable. Clarke is exactly the kind of fighter she’d want by her side: smart, passionate and true to her word.  _Perhaps it’s time to show some good faith, to demonstrate to her just how valuable of an ally the Resistance can be._

“Very well. Then, you need to practice.” She pushes off the counter and levels Clarke with a serious look. “If you are to be of any use to them, you must have complete mastery of your powers.”

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I want you to Push me into thinking something outrageous. Something not based on anything you see in this room.”

“I have _no_ idea how to do that."

“Just try,” she encourages. "Say something to me with your mind."

Clarke stares at Lexa, blue eyes boring into hers. She concentrates for a moment, and then, Lexa sees it. A flickering of blackness, quick pulses contracting in her pupils. Lexa feels a curious nudge in her brain, the tentative touch of a tendril of thought coolly brushing up against her mind, before retracting like a reflex as quickly as it came.

Clarke sighs loudly in frustration. “I can’t. It’s too hard.”

“You’re letting your doubt get the better of you,” she chastises.

“And you’re the expert on Pushing people how?” Clarke shoots back.

Lexa rolls her eyes, side-stepping her mocking tone. “I felt it. You just gave up too easily.” She crosses over to Clarke’s side of counter.

“What are you doing?” she says in alarm as Lexa moves behind her.

“A training exercise. May I?” she asks, holding up her hands.

Clarke hesitates before nodding. Lexa reaches around her. Her skin is warm as Lexa cups her hands over Clarke’s eyes, and the slight jump she makes when Lexa’s hands touch her face has Lexa whispering an apology.

“Anya used to do this with me when I was still learning as a child,” she explains next to Clarke’s ear.

Clarke fidgets inside the circle of her arms. The movement ruffles the air in the thin space between them, making Lexa aware of their positions, how close they really are. She tries to ignore the heat emanating from Clarke’s body and shifts into her Commander mode to try to erase the intimacy of the situation.

“Stay still and keep your eyes closed. Don’t open them until I tell you,” she instructs in a clinical voice.

The change in her tone must work because Clarke’s spine straightens in attention, growing still.

“Now clear your mind. Imagine a color— I like white— spreading in front of your eyes like a blank canvas. Your mind is empty, and you’re aware only of your breath flowing in and out. In and out.”

She repeats the phrase until Clarke breathes in time with the words. “Do you remember what they taught you as a child about Psychic powers?”

“All Psychic power, no matter what kind, is rooted in our brains,” Clarke quotes. “Yeah, I remember.”

Lexa taps Clarke's temple with her thumb, brushing against the soft tufts at the edge of her hairline. “It’s all in here, in your mind, and that means emotions are the enemy.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, twisting her head.

“Concentrate,” Lexa tuts, adjusting her hold and turning Clarke to face forward. She huffs in response and Lexa allows a small smile to creep onto her face. “Fear, anger, happiness, desire— they aren’t in the heart. They’re in the head. Endorphins, serotonin—”

“Chemicals in the brain. Glands and hormones creating urges.”

There’s a timbre in her voice when Clarke says the last word, and it sends a warm, coiling feeling low in Lexa’s belly. She swallows, wetting her throat, and struggles to keep her voice steady. The irony of her next instructions is not lost on her.

“Exactly. And because emotions are in the powerhouse of your abilities, they can interfere with your grasp of your powers. Lose control of your emotions; lose control of your powers. Don’t let your emotions control you.”

“How do I do that?”

“Listen to the stillness. Focus on your intent. Slow everything down and be deliberate with your actions. Let everything else fade away to background noise.”

Lexa removes her hands slowly and steps away. She walks back onto her side of the kitchen island, while Clarke stands across her, eyes still shut.

“Now open your eyes and Push me,” she commands.

Clarke’s eyes snap open, and a rush of black ripples out of her pupils like an alien liquid coating her eyes. Lexa feels the Push, more confident and purposeful this time. She shivers in response as a cool touch curls around her brain.

A sudden noise crashes next to her. Lexa rears back with wide, disbelieving eyes as a monstrous sized gorilla barrels through the wall. Its vicious roar makes the room shake as the black, hairy beast beats its chest.

The animal leaps up onto the island, and in a quick Move, Lexa Pulls Clarke behind her, shielding her with her body. On instinct, she reaches down to her hip for a sword that isn’t there— _and why should it be? Swords are weapons of the past_ — then shakes her head clear. She dodges the creature as it swipes a giant paw at them and Throws a drawer full of kitchen tools in its direction.

To her confusion, she hears laughter behind her. Lexa turns around to shoot Clarke a bewildered look, then whips back at the gorilla, but it’s gone. The room is empty, save for herself and Clarke.

Clarke points over to the sixteen or so different objects— kitchen knives, carving utensils, spatulas and one butcher’s axe— all deeply embedded into the wall across from where they are standing. Her genuine laughter continues to ring out, clear as a bell. It’s the most joyful thing Lexa has heard in years.

“Good to know you’ll protect me in case of a monster attack, Commander,” she teases.

Lexa tries to be affronted, but the smile on Clarke’s face is too infectious, and the corners of her lips start to curl.

Clarke lets out an exaggerated gasp of shock. “Is that almost a smile?”

Lexa straightens, schooling her face to be an impassive mask. “No.”

“Of course not. Because emotions are the enemy.”

“I’m glad to see you were listening,” she says with a straight face, refusing to let her face crack and let Clarke win.

Clarke smirks. She walks back to the kitchen island and picks up the fallen stools. Lexa slides onto the one next to her, as Clarke sits down, propping her elbow on the counter and leaning her head against her hand.

“What made you pick that image?” Lexa asks out of curiosity.

She shrugs. “I saw it once in a dream.”

“That must have been some dream. Is that why you made me think I was carrying a sword?”

Clarke’s nose scrunches in confusion. “I didn’t. Did you see a sword?”

Lexa frowns. “No, but for some reason, I reached for one, like I would for my gun, expecting a sword to be there.”

“Weird,” Clarke observes. “I didn’t Push that onto you. I only thought ‘monster attack.’ Your mind must have filled in the rest.”

Lexa turns the question in her mind, her curiosity sparking in a way she hasn’t felt since she was a child. “I never considered that the Pushee’s mind would be part of the creation of a Pusher’s lie, but I suppose it makes sense. The new memories have to come from somewhere.”

“You’ve actually thought about it?”

“Anya and Gustus made me learn everything about Psychics. It was part of my training to know every fighting style in existence. There’s something to learn from every power, even the ones that are extinct. But everything I’ve studied about Pushers came from books— all theories on how they Pushed at a target’s subconscious, never anything first-hand.”

“So I was your first time,” Clarke jokes, with a hint of pride in her grin. “How was it, thinking a giant mutant gorilla had attacked your super-secret headquarters?”

“It was…” Lexa struggles to explain how vivid the image was, a touch concerned at how convincing it felt despite the absurdity of the situation. “It felt real. Like I was on one of our missions, only instead of a tank filled with Division agents, it was a gorilla. But I didn’t even question what I was seeing. All I saw was danger and I had to get us out.”

She tilts her chin at the knives embedded in the wall. “It’s a good thing no one walked in, or I might have really hurt someone.”

Clarke’s face grows serious at her words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“I told you to do it, Clarke,” she reassures. “And I really should have expected it, because I felt you Push me before I saw it.”

“Did it feel like someone was crawling inside your head?” Clarke asks, leaning closer on the counter.

“No.” Lexa frowns. “It was almost like a brain freeze, though not nearly as strong. I don’t know how else to describe it. It wasn’t bad or uncomfortable. I just knew it wasn’t normal, but if I wasn't paying attention, I wouldn't have noticed it. And then I saw the gorilla. Was that what you felt when Cage Pushed you?”

Clarke shakes her head. “I had the vision first. It felt like a Watcher vision, but in the past. That should have been my first clue that something was wrong, but I didn't notice it at first. Same as you. And then...I could hear him in my head even though he was far away. It felt like his voice was slithering around, burrowing inside my thoughts.”

She shudders. “Did you hear my voice inside your head?”

“No, I would have remembered that. And I doubt it would be so unpleasant.”

Clarke bites back a smile at the unintended innuendo in her words. Lexa pulls away, fighting the heat she feels at the tips of her ears. She clears her throat.

“Anyway, keep practicing. I am sure Bellamy will come around to accepting your help.”

“I hope so,” she says, resigned.

“So quickly you forget the lesson,” Lexa chides lightly. Clarke looks up at her in question. “He has a weakness, Clarke. He cares too much about his mother and sister to let it stop him from accepting your help.” 

“You don’t know that.”

Costia’s face appears in Lexa’s mind. “I do. He has a chance to save his family. He will not squander it. I know I wouldn’t have.”

The words spill out thoughtlessly, before she’s aware what she’s saying. When it sinks in, Lexa feels off balance. It’s not like her to even allude to Costia to anyone, let alone to someone she’s only known for a few hours. She knows on some level it makes sense; in her mind, they are linked, because she would never have known Clarke without Costia. Still, the realization that she’s left herself so open unnerves her.

She glances at Clarke, and sure enough, Clarke quirks an eyebrow at her, a silent question in her eyes. Lexa bites the inside of her cheek, reluctant to elaborate further. In the end, Clarke’s patience wins out.

“I lost someone special to me a few years ago,” she begins.

Her mind spins as she tries to find a way to put the story into words that won’t slice open all her unhealed wounds. She can’t remember the last time she’s had to explain Costia. Every time she’s come up, the people in the room have always known.

“Division took her, because they heard that she was close to the Commander. They thought they could use her to glean my secrets. It was the closest they ever got to finding out my identity. And when she didn’t break…”

Lexa swallows back the bile rising in her throat as she thinks about the condition they found Costia’s body in, the way they had cut her up into pieces, how she must have suffered from their torture. Her eyes flutter closed for a brief second before she can steady her voice again.

“They tortured her to death,” she finishes. “And I promised myself I would never let it happen again.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says, reaching over the counter to grasp her hand. Her touch is cool against Lexa’s fingers, and it strikes her that this was the familiar feeling she felt in her mind: Clarke’s cold hand curling around hers. “Is that…Is that why you drug everyone who comes here?”

Lexa nods in surprise, the sharpness of Clarke’s intuition catching her off guard. “We put it into place as soon as we buried her. Shadow protocol calls for drugs to incapacitate while Anya Shadows and keeps Sniffs away. If they’re not awake as they come here, Watchers can’t See it. Division knows we do this, because we let them. That way they don’t bother trying again if one of ours gets captured. Even the recruits don’t know where they are.”

“What was her name?”

“Costia,” she whispers, and for once she doesn’t stumble when she says her name. “To this day, I still think about what I could have done to save her. If there had been even the slightest chance, if I had known what to do, I would have taken it, even if it meant sacrificing my own life and this war.”

It’s an admission she hasn’t voiced, even to Anya. Clarke’s fingers tighten around Lexa’s in a gentle squeeze, and soft eyes lock with hers in sympathetic kindness. The air around them feels thick, the moment too serious and raw. Lexa becomes acutely aware of how vulnerable she’s allowed herself to become. She withdraws her hand, diverting her gaze from Clarke’s concerned face.

“So you see, Bellamy's emotions are a weakness that you can work to your advantage,” she says, retreating back to safer ground.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lexa spots her mug on the floor. She stands, Calling it into her hand, and walks away from Clarke, busying herself with washing the dirty mug out in the sink. The distance gives her the buffer to breathe again and reset to normal.

“That doesn’t seem right,” Clarke says to her back.

Lexa turns around to face her, leaning against the sink. “To take advantage of an opportunity?”

Clarke’s chin juts out, eyes narrowed. “No, I mean looking at your connections to people as weakness,” she challenges.

“Leaders cannot afford to have chinks in their armor, Clarke. Particularly in battle. Otherwise people die.”

Anya has already taken her to task about her lapse of control and the chaotic way she lashed out. She let her fear and anger get the best of her, and as a result, everyone's lives were in danger. Lexa herself almost fainted after holding the Shield up. She only barely held it together before passing out in the van. A few seconds more, and who knows if she’d be standing here.

Her face must betray her thoughts, because Clarke seems chastened, her hard stare softening into something Lexa can't read. “So what, you don’t let anyone close to you?”

Lexa thinks of the pain she felt as a confused child, when they dragged her away from her family. She remembers the terror crushing her heart when Anya and Gustus fell. The image of Costia turning away from her still burns in her memory and haunts her dreams at night. No, she can’t go down that path again.

“Not anymore.”

“Seems kind of harsh.” 

“It is how we survive.”

Clarke grows silent at her words. Lexa can feel the distance growing between them, as stark truths pull apart the fragile strands of trust and understanding they were building. 

Lexa almost had her. For a while there it seemed like a real start, that Clarke was on her way to accepting her potential. 

But now, they're back to square one. Clarke sends her another unreadable look from across the kitchen island. It might as well be the ocean separating them, because Lexa doesn’t know how to bridge the gap.

“Take your time with your tea,” Lexa says softly. “I’ll walk you back to your room when you’re ready.”

*~*~*

As Anya walks the corridors of the silo, she wonders for the millionth time when she signed up to be a babysitter instead of a soldier in the fight against Division.

It had been an honor to be selected as the guardian of the future _Heda_ , a duty and responsibility that Anya never took lightly. She knows Indra recommended her as a kindness. Something to fill the gaping hole that her little sister’s death left, even if no one could ever replace Tris’ place in her heart. That said, there were days, weeks, months even, where she wanted to rip her hair out at Lexa’s antics growing up. Lexa and Costia were a handful together, to say the least.

But those days are behind her. Lexa’s grown out of her childish ways. Anya thought she was done chasing after impulsive, hot-headed Movers, shadowing their every move to make they don’t cause shit on her watch.

Yet here she is _._ Searching for one Bellamy Blake.

As she nears the main training center, she hears frustrated grunts echoing from one of the Mover exercise rooms. She rounds the corner and sighs when she enters. _I should have known._

Bellamy stands in the middle of the training room, hands outstretched as he tries to Stop flying tennis balls from hitting him in the face. His mop of hair is drenched, and his toned chest drips with sweat, his shirt carelessly abandoned to the side.

The whir of the ball launcher masks Anya’s entrance. She has to cough loudly to announce her presence. He whips around, arms up, face tense, then relaxes a fraction when he sees her face.

“Checking up on me?” he asks with that infuriating edge of superiority in his voice.

Anya folds her arms across her chest and leans lazily against the doorframe. “You’re liable to do something stupid like run off, so yes,” she smirks.

The blow lands as expected, her comment having its desired effect as his face darkens, erasing the smugness clean off.

“Like I could get out before one of your little soldiers got me,” he scoffs, turning his back to her.

Bellamy ignores her to return to his exercises, turning up the speed of the launcher. Ball after ball sails towards him, and he Throws up a Shield to bounce them away against the walls. They rebound back at him, each new object adding to the targets around him, until he’s surrounded by a dozen of them, caught in the center of a web of flying objects. Bellamy struggles to keep up with the attacks. He Deflects as best he can, but every few seconds, he gets nailed in the shins or clipped in the arms, and with every hit, he lets out a grunt of impatience.

After five minutes of watching, Anya decides she can’t stand to look at the incompetence anymore.

“You’re doing it wrong,” she declares.

“What?” he pants. A yellow projectile pelts him in the back of his head. His lack of concentration is atrocious. Even Lexa wasn’t this bad, and she started when she was seven. “What would you know? You’re not a Mover.”

Anya laughs, not even bothering to mask her derision. “Ah, there it is. The Mover arrogance that makes you think you’re the only ones who know how to fight. Who do you think trained Lexa to think the way she does in battle?”

Bellamy waves a hand. The machine turns off, and the balls fall to the ground. He turns to her, hands on his hips, frowning like a frustrated child.

“All right, fine. What am I doing wrong?”

She pushes off from the doorframe and strolls to the center of the room. She glances at all the objects on the floor. “You’re trying to replicate what Lexa and Indra did in the warehouse, right? Create a Shield large enough to withstand that blast?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “I am trying to work on my coverage, but every time I try to Deflect things away, I get blindsided by another thing.”

“That’s your problem. You’re thinking offense when you should be thinking defense.” She advances closer, eying his stance. “Lemme guess. Division taught you to use your Shield by throwing energy at things coming your way.”

“How else would you use a Shield?” Bellamy protests.

Anya flicks her finger on his forehead before he can bat her hand away. “It’s a mental game; use your head. If you cannot contain the danger, contain the person. It’s easier to maintain your focus around one thing than anticipate where a thousand hits are coming from.”

She crosses over, behind the protective glass to where ball launcher sits. “Grab all those balls and load this again,” she commands.

Bellamy rolls his eyes but complies, Floating the tennis balls to land inside the launcher’s basket.

“Close your eyes and put up an energy shield around you. Imagine a bubble and put yourself inside it.”

With a petulant sigh, he closes his eyes. Anya fights the urge to shoot a projectile at his face. As soon as his hands come up, she flips on the switch of the machine and cranks it up to the highest setting.

“Now keep them closed and concentrate only on keeping yourself safe.”

She aims the machine at him and fires the targets at him in rapid succession, quick and random like a spray of bullets. Yellow streaks bounce against his Shield, rainbow bursts forming with every hit. An iridescent dome appears under the barrage of her assault, but Bellamy prevails; his Shield doesn’t crack once.

Once the balls have been depleted, Anya shuts the machine off. Bellamy continues to maintain a proper defense for a few minutes more, before waving his hand and letting the objects bounce harmlessly away.

Anya reaches over to pick up his water bottle and tosses it at him. “See? Containment. Aggression and offense have their place, but defensive strategies will always keep you alive,” she lectures as he guzzles down his drink.

When he’s done, he squints at her. “Thanks,” he says hesitantly after a long beat.

She rolls her eyes. _Even his thank you is awkward and unsure._

“Try that again,” she reprimands. “If you’re going to say something, have the conviction to mean it or don’t say it at all.

She expects him to resort to mockery and sarcasm at the lesson; instead his voice is sincere. “Thank you, Anya. That actually really helped.”

The unexpected maturity catches her by surprise. It makes her almost charitable, complimentary even.

“You took the instruction well,” she says stiffly. “With a little more discipline, you could be an even better fighter.”

Bellamy folds his arms in front of his chest. “I’m not one of your soldiers,” he retorts.

“Damn straight. If you were one of mine, you’d know how to follow a simple order when I tell you to sit the fuck down in moving vehicle.” Anger flashes in his eyes at the jab. Anya almost wants to laugh because he looks just like Lexa did so many years ago.

She ignores his glare and gives him an appraising look. “But you do show potential,” she admits. “You’re a competent Mover, but you could be a great one if you’d just open your eyes and think first. You don’t put any thought to the bigger picture in combat, how to maximize the safety of others. If you put in half as much effort into protecting others as you do your sister, instead of going on the offensive half-cocked without a plan, you could actually do something with that training Division gave you.”

He looks at her strangely, then shakes his head and walks away. “Thanks for the recruitment pitch, but no thanks. I’ll do whatever the hell I want,” he says, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Oh, yes, and look where that has gotten you,” she snarks back.

Bellamy whips around and steps up to her, face slanting down at hers. “Fuck you. You don’t know anything about me or my family,” he says lowly, fury simmering in his eyes.

Anya refuses to step back and meets his glower with fire of her own. “I know you’re a coward. You are worse than the traitors who work for the Mountain and reap us from our homes.”

“How is that worse?” he asks in disbelief. “I’m not picking people off the streets.”

“No, instead you’re just sitting there watching idly by. You have a choice to help and you do nothing,” Anya spits out, unable to hold back her disdain.

“And don’t give me that crap about you growing up in Mt. Weather and being under watch by Division. Plenty of Psychics who used to live there are on our side,” she argues, pointing a finger in his face. “Hell, once I was even trapped inside the Mountain with Lincoln, and a Psychic helped the two of us escape. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here right now. You always have a choice.”

“Well good for them,” Bellamy mocks. “I can’t afford to put my neck out there and risk getting caught by getting involved in a fight that doesn’t include me. Not when my mom is still stuck in there and I have to look out for Octavia.”

Anya bristles at the naïveté in his argument. “When are you people going to learn that war affects all of us?  Neutrality doesn’t help anyone but the oppressor.”

“The war is _over,_ ” Bellamy rants. “It ended almost thirty years ago. You people are the ones who keep trying to start that shit up again. _MOVE ON.”_

Cold rage fills her veins at his statement. “That shit, as you call it, never ended,” she states stonily. “We’ve been trying to stop it since before you were born. I’ve seen things you’ve only read about in history books.”

“Oh yeah? And what do you know about being oppressed?” he counters. “You didn’t grow up in the Mountain. You didn’t see the things I did.”

“No, I was born in the City of Light.”

Bellamy stills, the kinetic energy in his frame slamming to a halt at her words. He stares at her for a beat, equal parts awed and shamed. “I didn’t know there were any survivors left from the internment camps.”

It’s not a card she likes to play. The horrific conditions that stole any childhood she could have had in the first years of her life are not things she wishes to remember. Anya flat out refuses to talk about what she went through 99% of the time, but there’s just something so infuriating about Bellamy Blake and people like him that it makes her lash out and hurt them with her pain.

“That’s because the majority of us didn’t make it,” Anya says coolly. “And don’t call them that. Internment is just a word they use to make you forget all the killing they did.”

Dredged up from the lagoon of memories she’s tried to drown, old hurts rise up and wrap around her heart, squeezing tightly. Anya fights against the pull that threatens to drag her down the familiar path to pain, and she twists it around to point at Bellamy instead.

“I’ve known oppression since the moment I was born,” she says, bitterness rushing out of her. “So trust me when I say, things are no better now than when they were shipping us off to death camps.”

He opens his mouth again to answer, but she cuts him off. “No. You shut up and you listen,” Anya orders. She’s earned that right.

“How do you think they managed to ship us off without a fight? They slapped on a pretty name on it, rounded us up in the name of ‘military necessity,’ and convinced everyone it was for our own good. And no one said a _damn_ _thing_ about it. Not even when they found out about the exterminations or the failed experimentations that led to Bleeders. It was genocide, and not only did Normals disregard it, they went to the great lengths to justify it.”

“Things are different now. We have a choice to leave,” Bellamy protests.

“Oh yes. Choosing between staying under their microscopes or dying from hunger and disease. That’s a _real_ choice _,_ ” Anya scoffs.  

“We’re so overcrowded in TonDC, we’re practically living on top of each other, and there aren’t enough resources for all of us to survive. My sister, Tris, was six when she died from something as simple as water sickness because we couldn’t get clean water to drink or the medicine to heal her.”

She tamps down the cracking feeling in her heart, as she remembers Tris’ face, the pain contorting it in a way no child’s face should. She still carries the guilt for being too helpless to save her little sister. At ten years old, Anya was too young to carry the burden of supporting another life, but the shame eats at her all the same.

“You don’t have to stay _here_ ,” Bellamy says, shaking her out of her reverie. “I don’t know why so many of you pick this place to live.”

His refusal to see the bigger picture makes Anya want to smack him into understanding.

“You think it’s an accident that we all wound up in TonDC?” she asks incredulously. “No one had homes to go back to when the government finally released us. Division took all of it. Normals won’t even hire us for jobs now; you really think they let Psychics buy houses and live next to them back then, even if we could afford it? We didn’t have any place else to go. And it’s just as bad here in Polis as it is everywhere else.”

“Times change. I found a job at the university,” he defends.

“And do they know you’re a Mover?” she fires back, not missing a beat. “Whose blood did you use to pass the medical exam? How much did you have to pay to change your medical records to get the job? Who did you have to bribe?”

Bellamy scratches the back of his neck in silence.

“You think you’re the first person to try to pass as Normal? Psychics have been doing that since before the war, and look where it got them.”

Anya folds her arms over her chest. “So tell me. What do you think they’ll do now that your face is plastered all over the news? You really believe you’ll have a job and a home to come back to when they figure it all out? Where will you go now?”

Bellamy’s face grows pale. Anya suspects he hasn’t thought that far ahead yet.

“You see? Just because our people aren’t in the City of Light anymore doesn’t mean the same damn thing isn’t happening. Our _choice_ isn’t a choice. Stay here or volunteer to go into the Mountain; either way, it’s a same slow death. And people like you are just letting it happen.” 

“I’m just trying to keep my family safe,” Bellamy says, softer this time, the conviction lost in his argument. His words sound more like a rationalization and a plea for understanding than a real belief in his stance. Anya isn’t one to coddle such weakness.

“Getting your mother out of the Mountain won’t make her safe. It’ll just happen again and keep on happening, if not to you, then your children. It just goes on and on in an endless cycle until everyone decides to say enough is enough.”

She snorts. “ _Safe_. There is no safe. Not until they are in ground and cannot harm us again. You want things to change? _Get in the fight_.”

Bellamy stands back, uncertainty painting his face, still unconvinced in the light of plain truths. Anya picks up a tennis ball and hands it to him, before turning to leave with a shake of her head. Sometimes she doesn’t know why she bothers wasting her time.

“So mutually assured destruction is the solution?” he calls just as she reaches the door.

“Better than lying down and taking it. You’re going to die either way. At least make it count.”

“Those can’t be our only options.”

“Those are the options that we have left.”

She turns to leave, only to slam into another body. Ryder, she realizes, as strong hands grasp her arms to steady her. When he pulls away, she notices he's out of breath, huffing as he speaks.

“Anya, there’s a problem. You need to come see this.”

Disciplined control keeps his voice from wavering, but the tense curve of his shoulders and slight edge of panic in his eyes give away the unspoken gravity behind his words.

All thoughts of overgrown children and their ignorance of the past fall away, and Anya shifts into high alert to face the dangers of the present. She follows quickly as Ryder leads the way, a knot of fear building in her chest as she considers whom death will try to steal from her next: the soft-hearted Watcher she counts as a brother or the oldest friend she has known. Her list of people tethering her to this world keeps getting shorter.

Ryder turns a corner and makes a beeline path to the war room. The gnarled knot turns into a heavy stone, dropping to her stomach. _Lincoln, then._

“Does this have something to do with Octavia and Raven? Is my sister all right?” Bellamy asks at their heels. _Of course he followed._

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Ryder replies, as they round the corner into the war room.

“My sister and my friend. They’re with Lincoln. They’re out there and Division’s looking for them,” he presses.

“They’re not our only problem,” Indra answers before Anya can bar him from entering.

Indra points up to the screens lining the walls, the sounds of news-casters from various channels overlapping over each other. The sight on the monitors causes Anya’s eye to twitch, the only outward sign she can’t control as she watches the broadcast in grim concern.    

_[“—due to the rioting that has broken out in downtown Polis. Within the last hour, at least six deaths have been reported and even more injured—”]_

It’s a violent, disorganized mess.

Black uniformed Bleeders scream to break up the hundreds of people in the crowd. Two Movers counter by Throwing a burning car in their direction. Fire and smoke fill the screen, the shaky camera caught in the middle of the chaos as people run past. The camera whips back to show Division troops with riot gear, clubs, and plastic shields forming lines and beating against the angry mobs of people.

_[“—reportedly over a dispute in a bar near the university that escalated into the violence erupting in the streets—”]_

On the monitors, bloodied Movers Hurl tear gas cans back at the soldiers, but then the crack of gunfire sounds. Through the haze, the camera tilts up. Blinding spotlights from drones overhead cut through the dark and shine into the camera. Bullets hail down from the sky, scattering people in a panic to hide under Movers’ shields.

Anya sidles up to Lexa, watching the muscles in her jaw clench. To anyone else, her calm veneer would fool them into thinking that the Commander was in complete control, already formulating a plan to contain the situation, but Anya knows better. This type of unnecessary sacrifice of lives is the kind Lexa hates the most.

_[“—I don’t know, man. At first it was nothin’, just everyone pissed that the bar was closing, and some drunk guy kept going on about the Psychics’ fault, and then like, people started shovin’ and—”]_

“How did this get so bad from one bar fight?” Clarke asks from a dark corner, almost startling Anya with her presence. Anya sends her an annoyed look. _As if the war room wasn’t crowded enough,_ she thinks, glancing at Bellamy in the doorway.

“Quint,” is Lexa’s terse reply, bringing Anya back to focus. “I told them they were not ready. He will pay for this insubordination.”

“Focus, Lexa. First, we deal with this,” she advises, placing a discreet but firm hand on her arm. The touch works, centers Lexa to face the disaster at hand.

“We must speak to the generals now,” she agrees. “Indra, assemble the council.”

Indra gives a brisk salute as she exits.

“What about Octavia and Raven?” Bellamy asks.

Lexa turns to face the outsiders, who really have no business being here in the first place.

“Clarke, Bellamy, I need you to go back to your room and gather your things,” she orders. “Be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. I promise you, we will find the fastest route to Lincoln and the others once they check in, but this takes priority. Ryder, escort them back to the room.”

The unequivocal dismissal brooks no argument. Anya waits as Ryder leads the reluctant pair away. When the room is clear, she voices the thought weighing on her mind since she entered the room.

“We lost the GPS signal in Lincoln’s phone in the downtown area. If he’s still there, getting through this is going to be a problem. A curfew’s one thing, but a riot?”

“I know,” Lexa says, her mouth forming a thin, serious line. “I know.” _  
_

 

 


	8. Act III: Destiny's Child (2/3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special 19k chapter in honor of American Thanksgiving. I'm especially thankful for all you readers and my wonderful, generous betas. :)

Bellamy’s pretty sure he’s going to go crazy if he doesn’t get to Octavia and Raven soon.

The sounds from the riot footage tug at his concentration as he gathers his things into the spare duffle bag Ryder provided him. He tries to block out the shouts of people screaming, but Clarke keeps watching the news instead of packing like she should.

_[“—it’s a real scene here in downtown Polis, as the Division Armed Forces have been called in—“]_

He glances up and sees the images of people being blasted back by torrents of water in the streets by agents. Drones drop tear gas canisters in an effort to scatter the street, and they’ve brought out the dogs. It’s like every picture from the history books he’s seen - only worse, because for all he knows, Octavia and Raven could be caught in there. His mind can’t expel the thought from his head, his stomach bottoming out in fear.

Lincoln better be taking care of her. They better not be caught in that riot. They better be safe.

_[“—Amid all the rioting, fires and looting are becoming widespread, and it is unknown—”]_

“Hey, turn that off, will ya?” he grumbles.

Clarke continues to ignore him, as transfixed by the television screen as she was in the Commander’s control room. “We caused this,” she says, her words soft and faint. 

“Technically, Raven caused that,” Bellamy says, pointing to the footage of the warehouse in flames.

But it’s like Clarke didn’t hear him. “All of this is happening because of me,” she laments. “This is all my fault.”

Bellamy scrunches his face at her in confusion. Part of him is still angry at her for lying. He’s still furious that she got him and Octavia tangled up with the Resistance, and that his little sister and Raven are out there in the middle of this.

What he doesn’t understand is why Clarke is berating herself over a riot. She looks so distraught, like Atlas buckling under the weight of the world, and it makes him mad because there are plenty of reasons why Clarke should feel guilty, but this isn’t one of them.

Anya’s voice rings in his ears. ‘ _When are you people going to learn that war affects all of us?’_

Bellamy shakes his head, shoving his dirty clothes in the empty bag. Fuck Anya. Fuck the Resistance. Fuck Division. This isn’t their fault.

“You didn’t do anything,” he says flatly, turning his back to the television.

Clarke snakes a hand in the crook of his elbow and spins him back. “People are dying, Bellamy, because of our actions.”

“We were trying to stop Division from taking you! That’s it. The way those people are reacting?” he says, waving an arm at the television. “That’s all on them. People are responsible for their own actions.”

“But those Psychics _are_ our people. We’re the same,” Clarke shoots back, pointing at the screen as well.

Bellamy wants to tear his hair out in frustration. “That’s what everyone keeps saying, but it’s not true. There are Psychics in the Mountain that work for Division too. Just because we’ve all got powers doesn’t make us the same.”

He Calls the remote out of Clarke’s hand and switches the television off with a satisfying press of the button, hoping to punctuate the end of the conversation. Unfortunately, Clarke seems to have other ideas.

“So what does that make us then?” she challenges, hands on her hips. “How do you divide the world?”

Bellamy scoffs. “There is no us.”

“Then why have you been helping me?” she argues.

“Because we made a deal.”

“That technically you could have walked away from because I lied about my name. But instead, you helped me. You called out Cage Wallace when he was lying and Pushing me.”

He rolls his eyes. “I had to. Cage wouldn’t have let me and Octavia and Raven just leave.”

“You aren’t part of the Resistance. You could have easily explained everything, handed me over, and walked away, but you didn’t.” Clarke folds her arms over her chest. “Face it. You picked a side. So what does that make us?”

Bellamy groans. He’s never heard someone make the act of saving another life sound so accusatory.

She does, however, have a point.

On one level, Clarke is right. He hates that she’s right, but they don’t belong to either category of Resistance or Division. Whatever he and Clarke are, right now they’re the same.

It doesn’t mean anything in the long run, though. Temporary alliances are just that: temporary. They’re nothing more than promises— easily made, easily broken. He and Clarke might be something now, but that doesn’t mean it will stick. Her people are not his and vice versa.

Bellamy scratches his forehead, trying to find the right words, a label that would somehow fit or explain. The glint from Clarke’s watch catches his eyes, and his mind drifts to his own father, the little of him that Bellamy remembers.

“Look, it’s like this,” he begins. “When I was little, there was this book my dad gave me before he died. It was about the Philippines back in the First Age in World War II. And there was this saying in it: ‘when the elephants dance, the chicken must be careful.’”

“What does that even mean?”

“They were talking about the Japanese and the Americans fighting in the Philippines. These two forces were fighting a war against each other on someone else’s land, and it didn’t matter which side they took, the Filipinos were the ones to suffer, like chickens caught between elephants.” 

Clarke makes a face. “So we’re the chickens?”

Bellamy sighs and sinks onto the bed, draping an arm over his eyes. He’s so fucking tired of explaining this. “We’re just…stuck in the middle. And sometimes we help each other, but most times we won’t. At the end of the day, nobody cares what happens to me, my sister, or my mom. Everyone’s just trying to survive.”

“Well, I care what happens to you,” she says plainly, taking a seat on the opposite end of the bed across from him.

He peeks at her from under his arm, squinting. “Yeah. Right.” 

“I do.” Clarke’s voice softens. “Bellamy, I know you’re mad that I lied, but I only did it so if Division ever questioned you, you’d have plausible deniability.”

She reaches over and bats his arm away, so he has to look at her. Her intense look is as serious as he’s ever seen her.

“I swear, my last name was the only thing I ever lied about. I told you I would help you and Octavia no matter what we found out about Division, and I will. I’m going to help you get your mom out that mountain. You have to believe me.”

And there it is. That glimmer of selflessness that he doesn’t understand. Octavia’s still young. She’s sheltered and naïve and she still thinks that she can take over the world, but Clarke’s smarter than that. She’s too pragmatic, sees things from too many angles to really be that idealistic. And yet, she says things like that.

“Why would you help me?” he asks, sitting up to meet her stare. “If I were you and Division was after me, I’d be running for the hills.”

“I made a promise.” Clarke shrugs. “Besides, for all I know, my dad is a prisoner in there too. I help you, maybe I help him too.”

Bellamy can’t help but smirk, shaking his head. “You know that’s stupid, right? Division’s turning themselves into Pushers, and you’re their number one target.”

She smiles her own helpless grin. “I’m either suicidal or incredibly stupid, but I can’t just sit by and do nothing.”

It _is_ stupid. But it’s also for her dad. And Bellamy knows, probably better than most, the stupid things people do for the ones they love.

“Do you ever regret not helping Monty and Raven?” she asks suddenly.

Bellamy tenses, his face hardening at the sudden turn of the conversation despite the neutral tone in Clarke’s voice. “That was different.”

“How?”

“They shouldn’t have asked Octavia. She’s just a kid,” he defends gruffly. She’ll always be a kid to him. _His_ kid sister _._

“So were Jasper and Finn.”

Bellamy’s heart knocks against his ribs, rattling inside him like a loose stone. The mention of Jasper and Finn still sends ripples of guilt through him, a sore spot that he tries to ignore until someone pokes at it with a stick.

As a security cadet, Bellamy had more access than most inside the Mountain, and while he never made friends with them, he knew of the Collins’ adopted brood of strays. Everyone in Mecha knew them. It was kind of hard not to, considering the strange family picture they made.

Boiled down to the basics, they stood apart. Monty and Jasper were scrawny and thin, all gangly limbs and open-jawed grins, but Monty was Korean where Jasper was white. Neither of them looked anything like Finn; with his good looks, tall height and broad-shoulders, the only traits he shared with the two were that he had brown hair like Jasper and was a Sniff like Monty. And then there was Raven: gorgeous, athletic, and a girl. At first glance, the four of them didn’t even look like the type to be friends, much less family.

But they were. Greater than the sum of their parts, they _were_ a family, one that Bellamy allowed to be torn apart.

“I’m not judging you,” Clarke continues, breaking up his thoughts. “I’m just trying to get you to understand. I don’t want to look back and regret not doing everything I could to help you and Octavia. Especially after everything you’ve done to help me. If something happened to you and I could have helped…”

Bellamy closes his eyes at her words. Octavia’s screams that night— one year, two months, and seventeen days ago and counting— rattle in his head.

 _‘He helped me, Bellamy! Jasper saved my life—OUR lives! He saw me as we were walking out, and he distracted the guard so we could get away, so if he dies tonight, it is on_ you _!’_

“Yeah,” he exhales loudly, ragged and harsh. “Of course I regret it. I regret it every damn day. My mom raised me to be better than that. Jasper helped us, but…”

The hot sting of tears forming behind his eyes builds, but he refuses to let the droplets fall. Instead he stares blankly at the white sheets on the bed.

“I just got so scared. I’ve been trying so hard to keep our heads above water, keep Octavia safe and figure out a way to put my family back together for so long...”

Clarke toes off her shoes and shuffles over to his side, pressing her shoulder against his as she leans against the headboard. He’s grateful she isn’t across from him anymore, because it’s easier not to have to look at anyone in the eye.

“Octavia was so mad at me when she found out about the radio. She disappeared for three hours. By the time I’d figured out that she’d snuck out, she was already long gone. But in the end it didn’t matter.”

Bellamy looks down at his hands in his lap. “Octavia didn’t talk to me for a month. Moved out and lived with Raven and Monty instead. Her face when she told me what happened…She kept looking me like I was a monster.”

“How long did it take before she forgave you?” Clarke asks gently. He kinda wishes she would be blunt and obnoxious instead. It’d be easier to take.

“I’m not sure she ever did.”

“Did you ever ask?”

Bellamy shakes his head. “I did it to keep her safe. No one ever understands that.”

“Look, I get it. If you want forgiveness or understanding, fine. You’re forgiven. But it doesn’t mean anything coming from me. You should ask Octavia for it. You should ask all of them for it.”

 _Easier said than done._ Bellamy’s tried before, but the words kept sticking in his throat. Doing so would admit he made a mistake, but he still doesn’t— won’t apologize for sticking to the promise he made himself, to keep his family alive and safe in all the ways his father tried and failed.

“One apology won’t solve things. It won’t bring them back.”

“It’s a first step,” Clarke offers. “The rest is a lot more steps in the same direction.”

Bellamy releases a rueful chuckle, slanting his head to look at her. “Is that what helping us is for you? A first step?” She furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “To joining the revolution,” he clarifies.

“I don’t follow."

“Anya gave me a little recruitment speech. The old ‘we’re all in this together’ crap. Told me I should stop standing on the sidelines and join the fight.”

Clarke frowns. “Lexa did the same thing. Tried to convince me that I’m some sort of lynchpin in this war.”

“You get the feeling they’re still hiding things from us?”

“Yeah. The full court press to join is…I don’t know what, but it’s something,” she agrees.

Bellamy could picture Clarke being a Resistance fighter. She definitely has the ability to convince people to do what she wants, even without the Pusher powers, and she cares about other people. Maybe a little too much. She strikes Bellamy as the type who might sacrifice herself for the greater good.

“Is that what you want to do? Fight for the freedom of our people?” he asks.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” she waffles. “I mean, they’re right. Division has to be brought down, but the idea of Pushing someone else into killing or dying in a battlefield on my say so is just…”

Clarke avoids his eyes and stares at her socks. “Right now, I just want to find my dad. And my mom, I guess, if she’s alive. I can’t see anything beyond that.”

A heavy air of helplessness wraps around them at her words, and they lapse into quiet thought. It’s a surprising first not to be arguing with Clarke. Bellamy doesn’t even notice it at first. It’s nice. Weird, but nice.

He shoots a momentary look at the closed door, wondering when Ryder or some other Resistance fighter will burst through the room and announce that it’s time to go. The wait is killing him.

“Why do you think they want me alive?” Clarke asks, breaking the silence.

Bellamy’s brow wrinkles. “The Resistance?” He would think it’s fairly obvious.

“Division. If you’re right, then they already know how the serum works, since Cage is a Pusher. Why would they need me?”

“Leverage for your mom, maybe?” he suggests. _To use you as a Pusher too,_ he doesn’t voice.

Clarke’s eyes narrow, the gears turning in her head. “What was your plan to break your mom out?”

“Cause a distraction while Octavia sneaks in through the tunnels and gets Mom. We need a Watcher to get past all those guards and Bleeders.”

“Same exit?”

“No. The Skybox is nearest to Alpha Station.”

Clarke crawls to the end of the bed and rummages through her bag. She pulls out her sketchbook and a pencil, then settles back next to Bellamy.

“Draw me a map of Mt. Weather,” she tells him, holding out the pencil.

Bellamy raises an eyebrow at her. The look in her eye is dead serious. _Might as well. Not like they can do anything else while waiting._ With a shrug, he accepts the pencil and pad and starts to draw.

“Mt. Weather faces south, overlooking the rest of Polis. It’s surrounded by forest so it’s easy to get near undetected, until you get to the gates. There are three main entrances: east, south, and west,” he says, sketching out the gates.

“The south gate is the largest, with the most traffic for official business and deliveries, but the west and east gates still have a fair amount of traffic too, mostly civilian. All the gates feed into Alpha station, which spans the entire front of the base. Alpha is where most of the Normals work: main offices, medical lab, security, engineering. Everything else is behind that area.”

Clarke tilts her head to look at the paper as he draws out the Skybox and Bleeders sections next. “Raven said that the tunnels had the most guards. Why not the Skybox?”

“They try to limit the amount of people in there. Most of it is automated with automatic locks and cameras. Makes it harder to Move things if there’s nothing to Move. In the event people do get out, they have trackers implanted in all their prisoners so they are easier to monitor.”

“So we’d have to take them out or shut them off somehow,” she says.

He blinks at her. The unexpectedly casual tone  in her voice when she says ‘we’ catches Bellamy by surprise. His body does something funny in response: something uncoils in his chest, loosening a tension he never knew he was carrying all this time. Clarke looks at him with expectant eyes, waiting for him to continue.

“Yeah,” Bellamy recovers, shaking his head. “The Bleeders, on the other hand, need a lot more Movers and guards to monitor. Their heads are so messed up that if something happens, someone needs to be there to grab the headsets and order them into submission.” 

“Why is the Skybox in the front instead of the back of the base? Doesn’t that make it easier to get out?”

“It’s part of the way everything is set up,” he replies, finishing barracks and residential stations. “See, the further away they put the dissenters from the rest of us, the easier it is to control.”

Bellamy leans back, satisfied with the completed map of the four layered sections. “The majority of Psychics live in the far back of the mountain. The most trusted Psychics get to live in Alpha. Mecha, Terra, and Agro are the residential areas where the rest of us live. They put the barracks between them and the prisoners to keep us separated. It goes residential, barracks, Skybox/Bleeders, Alpha.” 

Clarke nods her head with understanding. “That way if people break out, they have to get through Division Psychics too. Got it.”

“So the plan was, sneak through the tunnels, steal the headsets and a key card, and cause a disruption with the Bleeders. In the event of a Bleeder outbreak or an attack on the base, everything goes into lockdown.”

“What happens during lockdown?”

“The doors shut and lock everyone into the rooms they’re in, all over the base. Only Division agents have access to get out. A lockdown would keep all the civilians out of the way and clear a path for us. All I’d need to do is get one of their cards, and while Division was busy trying to deal with the Bleeders, the Watcher would help me get to the command center while Octavia went to Mom.”

Bellamy circles the command center in the center of the Alpha station. “The command center is the key. We have to get it because all the access, the gates, exits— everything is controlled up there. We’d disable all the card access but mine, get the cell door open and cut all the cameras so we could escape. Then all we’d have to do is meet up on the west side of Alpha.”

“Why there?”

“Medical lab is there. We’d need to cut out her tracker. Plus, word is there was a big explosion in the west wing less than a year ago. It’s been a weaker point in all their defenses ever since. Lots of blind spots with their cameras.”

“Sounds like a decent plan.”

It _was_ a decent plan. Bellamy had put a lot of thought into it. He’d taken all the considerations and made all the precautions. And he’d paid a lot of money— money they don’t have— for good intel. It would have worked.

Not that any of it matters now.

He huffs, pushing the sketchpad away. “Too bad we’re down a Watcher.”

Clarke picks up the pad and turns it to a fresh page. A comforting hand squeezes his bicep. “You have a Pusher on your side. We can make a new plan.”

That funny feeling returns to the pit of his stomach, but this time he understands the reason behind the unfamiliar way his body relaxes at the settled certainty her words. He hardly believes it himself. Habit makes him want to deny it, but he has a name for the unlikely thing he and Clarke have become: partners.

She’s not someone he’d have ever picked on his own. Clarke is annoying, stubborn and combative. She’s also genuine and smart, and whether he wants her help or not, Bellamy believes that Clarke really does mean it. She’s not going away. She’s on his side, to help him handle the burden of responsibility and share it, instead of him carrying that weight on his own.

He’s never had that before. An equal he can trust, fighting to stay by his side.

It’s a new feeling, freeing in a way he can’t describe. But he’s grateful for it. For her and her goddamn persistence.

“We’ll figure it out, Bellamy,” Clarke says again and this time, he accepts it with a small smile.

“We just gotta get to Octavia and Raven first,” she sighs.

Bellamy sags against the headboard. They really do need to leave this place. He glances once more at the door and wills someone to come in and hurry them on their way to his little sister.

Clarke tilts her head and rests her head on his shoulder. Her hair tickles his skin, a faint reminder of the way Octavia’s used to when she’d do the same motion on his really bad days.

This wait is still driving him crazy. But at least with an ally—no, a _friend_ on his side, it feels a little bit more bearable.

*~*~*

The tick-tock sound of the clock hanging on the kitchen wall is driving Octavia insane.

Waiting is the worst. No, scratch that. Waiting in silence is the worst. There’s nothing to distract her or occupy her brain. Nothing to fill the time as fear chips away at her hope bit by bit while the eerie, disquieting sound of silence swallows the room. All she can hear is the ticking. To be honest, she’s not entirely certain it isn’t all in her head.

The minute hand clicks back a fraction before moving forward past the twelve.

“Okay, it’s been an hour. I’m going to go check on him,” she declares.

Monty looks up from the scattered pieces of Lincoln’s busted phone on the dining table.

"Octavia, no. I told you before, you just have to wait. What if he’s close? Raven needs that Stitch. She’s not going to make it without him.”

Octavia swallows hard at his words. She glances across the living room at Lincoln, head bowed, back hunched over like he’s praying. He’s been sitting there, silent and stock-still with eyes closed, Scrying for answers since the news of the riots.

Under normal circumstances, she’d be drooling. Monty didn’t have anything that could possibly fit Lincoln’s broad shoulders, so he’s been walking around shirtless, muscles and tattoos on full display until the laundry finishes. But Raven’s life is on the line, so instead she’s been tracing the curve of Lincoln’s back, watching every twitch his muscles make, anything that might serve as a sign that things are going to be okay.

They need to do _something_ soon to save Raven’s life, but they can’t move, not until they know where to go. She itches to go over to him, to shake him awake and ask him what he Sees, but Monty’s right. What if he’s on the verge of finding Nyko and she disturbs him?

She can’t be the reason why Raven dies.

So they’re stuck. Octavia feels a bit like that guy from that Greek myth her mother told her and Bellamy about when they were kids. The one who was forced to sit under a sword held up by a single thread. Hercules or Damocles or Achilles or something. One of those dudes whose name ends in ‘es.’ Bellamy would totally lecture her for forgetting his name.

She really hopes he’s safe.

“This blows,” she whines as she takes the seat next to Monty.

Minutes pass, and still nothing. She cracks her knuckles nervously until Monty shoots her a warning look to stop.

Then, a soft cry sounds from the sofa. Octavia and Monty scramble over themselves to rush to his side. Lincoln’s eyes are still screwed shut, but tears still leak out of them. It looks like he’s caught in a nightmare, pain etched in his face and straining his voice.

“No,” he rasps. “Please.”

“Lincoln,” she calls.

His skin is too warm, almost feverish when Octavia holds his face and shakes him, trying to break him free from whatever it is he’s Seeing. She’s never seen a Watcher caught in a vision before, doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to do. But he’s hurting, and she’s scared, and she has to do something.

“LINCOLN, SNAP OUT OF IT!” she shouts.

His entire body shudders, shaking all over; then he gasps for breath, eyes flying open. Octavia wipes at his wet cheeks, the scruff from his stubble scratching like damp sandpaper against her palm. He blinks owlishly at her.

“Octavia?”

She sighs in relief when she sees that his eyes are lucid and clear. “Hey.”

Lincoln rolls his eyes back as he flops backwards against the cushions of the sofa. He closes his eyes again and takes deep breaths that worry Octavia. Her heel taps nervously as she waits for him to adjust to the present. Monty motions to him with his head silently.

‘ _Ask him,_ ’ Monty mouths.

‘ _I know_ ,’ she mouths back and clears her throat.

“What did you See? Was it your friend?” Octavia prompts after a few beats.

Lincoln’s eyes flutter open. “No. He’s fine.”

Monty looks like he’s about to say something, but Lincoln stands abruptly, towering over them. “I need a break. Do you have a place I can lie down for a bit?”

“Uh. Yeah. Sure. You can take my room,” Monty responds, hesitantly pointing to the door.

“Thanks,” Lincoln says with a weary sigh.

Octavia’s eyes follow him as he goes into Monty’s bedroom. As soon as the door closes, Monty turns to her and opens his mouth to speak.

“I know. I’m going,” she says, cutting him off. “Just…give it a minute. I gotta figure out how to do this.”

She braces her hands on the edge of table and thinks, her finger drumming a jumpy rhythm. Lincoln’s stuck. What do Watchers do when they’re stuck? Octavia tries to recall all the Watchers she’s ever known: Raven’s mom, Lincoln, Clarke.

Wait.

Clarke.

The words from their first meeting ring in Octavia’s mind.

_‘Alcohol helps with the visions. Loosens the mind.’_

Octavia eyes the liquor bottles that line the cabinet on the wall. She turns to Monty with a rueful smile.

“I need you to mix the strongest shot you’ve got on your menu.”

*~*~*

When she cracks Monty’s bedroom door open, Lincoln isn’t on the bed as expected. Instead he’s standing in the dark, staring out of the window, lost in thought.  The wooden slats of the window shade cast dark lines over his face, the black tattoos on his chest and neck melting together with the shadows. The rise and fall of his chest as he breathes makes them dance in the city light.

Transfixed by the sight, Octavia shakes her head.

_All right, focus. Find out what’s wrong, fix it. Then get him back on track to find his friend so Raven gets help._

She knocks on the doorframe to get his attention.

“Hey,” she says softly. “I thought you wanted to lie down.”

“I’m sorry,” he replies without turning his head from the window. “I know you need answers, and I’m trying. It’s just a lot.”

The distant voice he apologizes with says more about his mindset than the fact that he won’t look at her. Whatever Lincoln Saw, it’s closed him off, made him guarded in a way she hasn’t seen before. Getting him to open up so she can fix this is going to be harder than she thought.

Careful not to spill the drink in her hand, she places it down on the nightstand. She flicks on the lamp to change the atmosphere. A yellow glow fills the corner of the room, already making the room warmer and inviting. Octavia crawls onto Monty’s bed and relaxes against the headboard. The familiar feel of his pillows against her back helps ground her as she sits cross-legged to face Lincoln.

“Talk to me. What’s going on?” she asks. Blunt honesty is the only way Octavia knows how to cut through the bullshit, but she softens her question with a kind look.

When Lincoln finally turns to look at her, the pain in his bloodshot eyes makes her heart clench. Worry cuts through her, because she has only ever associated strength with Lincoln, a strong, steady tower of calm in the eye of the storm. She doesn’t know what could have sliced through that armor, what he could have Seen, but the need to make the haunted look go away overrides any other thoughts.

“Come here,” she beckons, holding out her hand. “Please,” she adds.

It’s the _please_ that does it. Whatever internal struggle Lincoln has in his head doesn’t last long, and soon he’s crawling onto the bed next to her. He hesitates at first, perching stiffly onto the bed as if unsure how close he should get, but she adjusts her legs and pulls his head into her lap without preamble.

The forward move startles him, causing him to freeze, but Octavia smooths her palms back and forth over the rigid arc of his shoulders, the way her mom used to with her as a kid. It works just as well with him. Lincoln’s body eventually melts into hers, curling on the bed like a giant, lazy cat. She alternates between running the back of her knuckles along the tattoo of his neck and tracing patterns down the curve of his back. Lincoln puts a cautious hand on her knee and rubs a thumb against the fabric of her pants in time with her own movements, and they stay like that until he’s ready to talk. 

“It’s a lot to take in,” he finally says, pulling up to sit next to her. “The visions…there are a lot of people dying out there. So much unnecessary violence and bloodshed. It reminds me of the nightmares I had as a kid when I couldn’t control the visions I got. Before I learned how to block things out. I just needed a break from all the death.”

The confession steals a breath from her lungs. Octavia never considered that all this time, Lincoln was watching people die while searching for his friend. Guilt stabs another wound at her chest. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t offered to help Clarke.

“I’m sorry. The things you must be Seeing,” she says, fidgeting with her hands in her now empty lap. She misses his warmth of his weight. “Is there anything I can do to help focus your visions?”

Lincoln gives her a wane smile. “You can’t. I wish you could, but not even that drink is going to help,” he says pointing to the glass on the nightstand.

“Oh no, that’s for me,” she says quickly, the guilt of forcing Lincoln to endure the sight of more deaths pushing her to lie. Octavia grabs the shot glass and downs it in one gulp. The liquid burns her throat, and she grimaces at the taste. _Disgusting._ “Love it,” she adds weakly.

He holds back a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling in mirth for the first time all night. Lincoln raises an eyebrow and stares her down until she lets loose an exaggerated sigh at being caught in the lie. It earns her a chuckle from his lips, which she counts as a small victory in relaxing them both. The room feels lighter, less weighted than before. Like they might actually be okay and find a way out of this mess. Lincoln must feel the shift too, because he continues without prompting.

“Really, though. I don’t need alcohol to See more clearly. My visions are clear. It’s Nyko. He keeps changing his mind.”

“What does that mean?” Octavia asks, confused. 

“Watchers only get visions when people make decisions. You make a decision to cross the road; I See it. As soon as they change their minds, the vision changes. The visions keep on changing. Nyko can’t decide.”

“So, what is Nyko deciding between?”

“Leave a secure location or risk going outside and try to help someone out so they’ll help him out.” Lincoln drags a hand over his head, rubbing the nape of his neck. She pushes away the urge to touch his neck again and focuses on his words instead. “He needs to stay put or he’ll get hurt.”

“Where is he?” she asks.

“He's stuck somewhere on the other side of where the worst of it is. I don’t know exactly where.” Lincoln sighs. “I wish my phone wasn’t so useless right now.”

“You got the message to Nyko to come before it crapped out at least,” she comforts. The damage to Lincoln’s phone from the warehouse allowed them to eek out only one phone call. Octavia is grateful they were able to do at least that. She wracks her brain for another idea.

“Is there anything we can do to help? Maybe go out there and try to find him from what you Saw?”

Lincoln shoots up at the suggestion. “Octavia—“

“We could do it.” The idea starts to take shape in her mind, excitement building as she begins to craft a plan. “The car we have still has gas. Monty can hack the cameras. You just tell us what to look for and I’m sure we can find him. We can go get him right now and bring him here!”

Lincoln grabs her hands, stilling her with sudden seriousness. “We can’t.”

“Why not?” she challenges, snatching her hands away.

“We die if we go out there.”

“Well, we can't just sit here and do nothing!” she says, raising her voice.

“We have to. The only way we don’t die is if we stay put.”

His eyes search hers for understanding, for a promise she doesn’t want to give. Octavia diverts her eyes up at the ceiling, refusing to look at him, and thumps her head against the padded headboard.

“There has to be _something_ we can do,” she argues stubbornly.

Lincoln moves closer to her, reaching out for her hand again, gently this time. “You’ve already thought about going outside. You’ve changed your minds three times tonight.”

It’s a statement, not a question. “Yeah, so?”

“I know because I’ve Seen your brother die the same way three times tonight.”

Her breath hitches, the blood draining from her face at his statement.

“All three times the vision changed when you decided to stay,” he continues. “We can’t go into that riot. There are too many variables we can’t control.”

The finality of his words unravels the last of Octavia’s resolve, the remaining threads of her sanity breaking and giving way to the sea of hopeless panic she’s been fighting back all night. She was holding it together so well until now, but the speed with which Lincoln has shut her down collapses all her defenses.

Tears start to well in her eyes at the utter helplessness of their situation. Keep Bellamy safe or let Raven die. It’s a bullshit choice, and she refuses to accept it.

“Okay then, tell me, Lincoln! Tell me what we’re supposed to do!” she cries, wiping at her eyes. “I can’t lose Raven. She’s my best friend. She was the first person outside of Bellamy and Mom to know me. To see me and call me by my real name. She gave me my first drink. My first shopping trip.” _My first everything,_ she thinks, biting her lip and looking away.

Lincoln wraps a strong arm around her shoulders. He pulls her closer to his chest, leaning back against the pillows. The faint scent of soap on his skin and the warmth of his body enveloping her make feel her safe, a reversal of their positions before. A touch of embarrassment washes over her at her outburst, at needing this, because she entered this room with the intent of helping Lincoln, and here he is comforting her instead. She should be stronger.

But Octavia doesn’t know how to fight when there is no opponent, when there’s nothing she’s allowed to do that won’t make it worse. Everything is spinning out of control and worse, she can’t shake the feeling that it’s all her fault. Lincoln’s thumb rubs soothing circles on her back, but it isn’t enough to quell her guilt. 

“The only reason Raven was out there in the first place was to help me find mom,” she confesses against his collarbone. Her voice keeps cracking and she’s helpless to stop it. “I asked Clarke for help, and now she’s gone. Who knows what kind of lies Cage fed her? I mean, her name is Walters, not Griffin. And Bellamy’s gone, and my mom's in trouble, because Monty says they’re experimenting on people in the Skybox. So what are we supposed to do?”

“We wait,” Lincoln says simply. Octavia groans in response, lifting her head off his chest, but he tugs her back before she can stand up in frustration.

“Hey, listen to me.” He reaches over and cups her cheek. She leans into his touch, trying to absorb some of his calm stability. “It’s going to be okay. Bellamy and Clarke are safe. And when they come to us, we’ll figure out a plan for your mom.”

Hope pricks at her chest. “They’re coming to us?”

“Yes. Nyko will have checked in with HQ. It’s protocol as soon as an event like this happens, and even more so because he knows we’re in trouble. I keep Seeing the Commander receiving our location and his. That hasn’t changed. So even if he doesn’t make it past the riots, help is on the way.”

“When will they be here?”

“As soon as they hear.”

“And you know for sure it will be in time? You Saw it?”

“I didn’t See it, but they'll be here. It'll be okay.”

The flicker of hope snuffs out in an instant, swallowed by panic again. “But how do you know, Lincoln? Because I'm freaking out.”

“Because I have faith,” he replies.

Octavia looks at him with incredulity. Now is not the time for vague platitudes. She needs something real, something she can hold onto. The earnesty in his eyes is not enough. The world is too harsh and exacting in its cruelty. He should know.

“How can you say that, after everything that you’ve Seen?”

Lincoln shakes his head. “Watching isn’t reliant on events. It's reliant on people, on their predictability. People change their futures every day. The real certainty comes from understanding the people we are Watching. We can try to nudge them in another direction, but in the end, people make their own choices. We just Watch. I believe in Nyko. I believe in the Commander and Anya that they'll come through.”

The complete certainty in his voice reverberates in her bones. She wishes she had that kind of faith. “You trust them that much?”

“Yes.” Lincoln pauses, then adds, “For the same reason you know Bellamy would move heaven and earth to get to you.”

There’s an unexpected rawness in his voice that she doesn’t understand. Octavia waits, uncertain what he’ll say next.

“Remember when I told you about the time Anya rescued me from the Mountain?” he asks.

She nods. “Yeah. She saved you after your friends died.”

“Well, what I didn’t tell you is why she did it,” he says.

Octavia slants her head closer, interest piqued by his words.

“Anya is more than just a friend. My parents died when I was five. Indra took me in after their death, and around that time, she took Anya in as her Second. Anya didn't have anywhere to go either, no family left. So she lived with us too.”

Lincoln chuckles with a nostalgic fondness in his voice. “I followed her around the training center like a mascot, bugging her with questions all the time. There’s about nine years between us, so of course she hated it. I was the annoying little brother she never wanted. Even as adults, we still fight about everything.”

Octavia’s mouth curves at the corners. “Bellamy’s the opposite. I think he always wanted a sibling. We have different dads, but Bellamy always took care of me. He never gave me crap about me following his every move.” Her heart aches a little bit more, worry digging deeper in her chest.

“Well, you’re lucky. Anya is a lot more complicated. But when I was captured, Indra tells me she fought to be on the rescue team. The first one to volunteer. I can’t tell you how grateful I was to see her in the Mountain.” He pauses. “Although I almost punched her out when she arrived because she had stolen a lab coat and face mask.”

Octavia sniffles through her laugh. “Why?”

“To be fair, I  _was_  delirious. I was drugged up with whatever that woman doctor gave me. I was barely conscious at the time.”

A creeping chill runs through her bones. Her voice hardens, more brittle and sharp than she intends. “A female doctor? Dark skin, cold eyes, black wavy hair that makes her look like a supermodel instead of a doctor?”

Lincoln blinks, a little shocked. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“That’s Dr. Tsing,” she replies, her face stony as she spits out the name. “She’s the head bitch in charge of the medical lab on the base. Loves to play Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Dr. Tsing,” he repeats, as if testing out the name. He rubs the tattoo on his chest absently. “I never knew her name before now.”

“Did she…” Octavia hesitates, almost afraid to ask. “What did she do to you?”

“Nothing,” Lincoln reassures her. “They gave me something strong, like nothing I’ve ever had, to induce visions, but Anya arrived before they could do anything else.”

“But…” she prompts, knowing there’s more to the story than that. She recognizes the distant, pained look on his face, the same that Monty and Raven get sometimes.

“I recognized her,” he admits. “I had Seen her before in my visions. I knew what she was capable of. And that medical lab was all glass; I could see everything. All those experiments, the Bleeders, Psychics thrashing around in beds, some screaming in pain— while that woman just took notes.”

Lincoln shudders at the memory. “When she gave me that drug, I thought I was next.”

“So what happened?”

He falters at the question, looking away. “Anya snuck me away. We got to the tunnels, but we were ambushed. Guards surrounded us from every direction. They killed Costia’s parents right in front of us. I was so scared and weak from the drugs that I passed out.”

Octavia watches Lincoln carefully, at the pain reflecting in his brown eyes, full of sadness. After a moment he shakes out of his trance and levels her with a steady look.

“But Anya managed to save us. Against all the odds, by herself in the Mountain, lugging dead weight, she got me out. She won’t talk about it even now. I can only imagine the things she had to do, what it cost her soul to get us out. But there’s reason a why she was chosen to raise the Commander after that incident. There is no one I trust more to have my back. She’s always looked out for me, saved my skin countless times, and I know she'll come through for us again. Between your brother and Anya, nothing is going to stop them getting to us.”

He pulls her back into his arms. “So breathe, okay? Everything is going to be fine.”

She leans into him, head settled against his chest, and matches her breaths to his, slow and measured, until she believes his words. Her arm snakes around his waist, raising goosebumps on his skin where her fingers trail. Octavia nuzzles closer, wondering how he can be cold when his body is like a radiator.

“So we just sit tight and hope they don't show up too late?” she asks, her voice almost steady this time.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“This sucks.” She exhales in frustration. “I'm going to go crazy waiting. How am I supposed to block this out?”

“A warrior doesn’t worry about what he can’t control,” Lincoln quotes.

“Anya?” she guesses.

Lincoln smirks. “Indra. One of the many things she taught me about keeping my mind occupied.”

Octavia traces the black lines of Lincoln’s tattoo, a sly idea of her own forming on what Lincoln can do to help keep her occupied. She lets her breath hit against his skin in soft puffs, as she murmurs innocently, “What other tips did she teach you?”

Lincoln’s eyes close briefly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. Octavia bites her lip, enjoying the effect she has on him. “She used to have me do this exercise when I couldn't sleep, and the nightmares were keeping me up. She had me pick something to concentrate on.”

His voice hitches as her fingertip skims down the planes of his stomach, dancing just a hair above the waistline of his pants.  “Something to focus on my mind on and remind myself that there is still good in the world.”

“Did it help? Block out all the bad things?” she asks.

Lincoln stops her wandering fingers and tangles them with his own. Her hand looks small next to his, but she likes the way they fit together. After a few seconds, Octavia tilts her head up at him, expecting to find half-lidded eyes filled with lust and desire.

What she sees instead is a face filled with longing and want, yes, but something else too: an exposed look of vulnerability and seriousness, mixed in with something else she can’t quite name. Something passes behind Lincoln’s eyes, something almost spoken, a layer she can’t read.

“Yes,” he whispers. Her heart beats a little faster when his eyes flick to her lips. “You just have to choose something else to think about.”

It’s an invitation, complete with the understanding of what she’s doing, but leaving it up to her to make the first move. That freedom to choose is what causes her to act.

Before she can stop herself, Octavia surges forward, closing the distance between their mouths. Lincoln grunts from the sudden movement, but quickly reciprocates, his hands cradling her face, tangling in her hair, as he deepens the kiss.

For a first kiss, it’s too open, too messy, how inelegantly their lips touch. Her teeth scrape against Lincoln’s lips, eager and needy, his mouth hot and slick when she licks into it. It isn’t artful or anything like she ever imagined— and she has imagined it far too many times in her head to count— but it’s perfect.

Without breaking the kiss, Lincoln leans forward, pushing off the headboard to sit them upright. Strong muscles hold her in place, his large hands putting gentle pressure on her hips. She braces her hands on his shoulders and straddles him, wrapping her legs around his waist in a smooth move. His hands skim along her thighs, then up to cup her breasts. Lincoln brands a trail of hot kisses along the column of her neck, and _God_ , she needed this.  

It’s reckless and impulsive, but it’s cutting through her fear, stripping it away until there’s nothing left but the two of them. She feels like they’ve been building to this since the moment he walked into her home, an inevitability they’ve been dancing around for days.

Her nails dig into the nape of his neck, leaving crescent marks in his skin as he sucks at her collarbone. Filled with the desire to return the favor, she pulls his head up to meet her lips. The scratchy sensation of his stubble burns a little on her cheeks and mouth, but she doesn’t care. Her lips pepper kisses along his jaw, on the underside of his chin, in a frantic movement to get closer. She traces her tongue along his tattoo, up his neck and behind his ear, feeling the exhalation of hot breath against her shoulder when her teeth close around his earlobe.

Needing to feel more of him, Octavia pulls back, whipping off her tank top before pressing her body against his. His overheated skin is so fucking warm and soft, like velvet over iron. She shivers when their bodies make contact, his hands roaming the expanse of her back, pulling her closer. Lincoln’s head dips down, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses on her breasts, earning a whimper from the back of Octavia’s throat when his lips close over a nipple through the thin fabric of her bra.

It leaves her wet and wanting more.

She nips at his neck and rocks her hips against him, needing the friction. It draws out a moan, soft and rough sounding in her ears, and sends a shock of heat down to her core. She kisses him again, his fingers toying with the strap of her bra while her fingernails rake up and down the planes of his chest before finally landing on the drawstring of his pants.

“Octavia,” he exhales, breathless. “We should— we don’t have to—”

“Shhhhh. We’re focusing on the good in the world, remember?” she smiles against his skin. 

She cants her hips forward in his lap, feeling his hardness brush inside her thigh, as she reaches back and fumbles for the clasp of her bra.

Lincoln breaks the kiss and pulls back, stilling her hands. “We don’t have to do anything tonight. I can wait.”

“Relax. I’m not a virgin, Lincoln. I’ve had sex before.” A disturbing thought crosses her mind as she reassures him. “Wait - have you ever Seen me…?”

Lincoln’s eyes widen almost comically as he rears back. “NO! No! God, no. I just. We don’t have to rush this.” He presses his forehead against hers, pushes her hair out of her face and tucks the locks behind her ears. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

“You won’t. _We_ won’t.” Octavia promises, pulling back to press a kiss on his forehead, on his lips.

She feels his nod against her head. With a strong arm supporting her, Lincoln bends her backwards, skimming his free hand down in a straight line from her sternum to her navel until her back hits the mattress. He raises her arms over her head, pinning them down on the bed.

In the glow of the lamp light, his dark eyes shine like obsidian as he hovers over her. A lump forms in her throat, and Octavia swallows it back, feels the flush of heat spreading throughout her body. She’s unprepared for the way he drinks in the sight of her, filled with reverence and awe.

She feels stripped bare and vulnerable in ways she hasn’t felt in a long time, because Lincoln looks at her and really sees her. Not through her or at an imagined her. She isn’t pretending to be a mysterious girl in a mask or the stranger at the party to hook up with. He sees only her. Just her, which is all she’s ever wanted.

“You’re so beautiful,” he utters.

“You should see me with my clothes off,” she teases, needing the levity back.

“You come first,” he declares, his lips twitching up into a devilish smile, and her coy grin turns into a moan as he begins a tortuous, maddeningly slow trail of kisses down her stomach.

*~*~*

“You know, when I asked you before if you had any other tattoos to show me, I didn’t expect you’d have so many,” Octavia declares cheekily. Her fingers dance over the two curved tattoos that bisect Lincoln’s chest.  “What about these two? What do they mean?”

He smiles, reveling in the press of her skin against his, her naked body bonelessly draped on top of him. He’d always known Octavia would be a prominent figure in his life. But never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined having this: this precious, perfect, wonderful girl settled between his legs, her hair tickling his side, chin resting on his chest as she smiles up at him. 

Lincoln has always been a little different from the rest. Independent, he’d argue. Contrary, Indra would say. An idealistic fool with his head in the clouds is how Anya has described him more than once. But for better or for worse, something has always put him on the outside. He’s the peacekeeper among warriors, the sole Watcher among Psychics, the adopted son of a chief in a city of orphans without families to take them in. An endangered species, in more ways than one.

His unique status has afforded him many enemies and few friends who understand and accept him. If he had grown up in a different time, he wouldn’t need to be so careful. He’d have been surrounded by the people in his parents’ clan, guided by them, protected and understood. Watchers were never meant to live alone. The destruction of his culture is something he feels every day, and it eats at him all the time, because he’s had to carve out a space for himself instead and force connections to make them fit.  He has Indra, Anya, and a handful of loyal friends, but everything has always been hard won.

But with Octavia, it's all so easy. With anyone else, such prying questions about the history indelibly inked into his skin would make him clam up. Instead his heart has never felt more at peace. He feels like he could belong— that they could belong to each other. The way she keeps asking questions with such genuine curiosity makes him wants to share everything with her, every story, every piece of himself to make him hers.

“Lincoln,” she teases in a sing-song voice. A playful finger touches his nose. “Stop day-dreaming, and answer me.”

He smiles back at her, wide and free. “Now why would I want to dream when you’re here in front of me?” he replies, stroking the hair on her shoulder and trailing his hand along her back. He lets his hands rest in the curve of the small of her back.

Octavia smirks. “Charmer. You’re lucky you’re cute.” She kisses the spot right over his heart, the softness of her lips waking every nerve in his body. “But really, tell me.”

“They represent the Divide,” he explains. “It’s a reminder to myself that the past and the future only meet in the present. It’s easy to get so caught up in visions of the future, that you can forget to live in the now and appreciate what you have. When Anya left to raise the Commander, I got this to honor her, as a promise to her to stay grounded.”

“That’s beautiful,” Octavia says, soft with wonder.

Lincoln relaxes into her touch as her hand drifts lower across his skin. He tries to stop all the blood from rushing down his body as she runs her finger over the bone of his hip to land on the tattoo there.

“This one looks familiar,” she says, tracing the outline of the eye inside a pyramid. “What’s that one for?”

Lincoln raises an eyebrow in surprise. The All-Seeing Eye is a symbol unknown to non-Watchers for a reason. It’s why he got the tattoo so small and so low on his hip, to hide it from prying questions.

“That one is to honor of my parents,” he answers carefully.

“I’ve seen this symbol before.”

He can see the thoughts turning in her head, as she searches for the connection. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I just can’t remember where. It’s going to bug me until I figure it out,” she says, shaking her head. “So what is it?”

Lincoln hesitates, unsure how to answer. It isn’t something they talk about with non-Watchers. He wants to tell her the truth; Octavia makes him want to spill all his secrets, but this is bigger than just him. He feels obligated to hold his tongue. Before he can find the words to delicately say why he can’t answer, though, he catches the mischievous gleam in her eye. 

“Is it some sort of super-secret Watcher thing? Like a magical decoder ring to show you’re part of the club,” she teases with a silly grin.

She’s giving him an out, understanding somehow without him needing to explain. The simple act makes his chest expand. “Yeah, something like that,” Lincoln replies, chuckling.

“Do you remember much about your parents?”

“Bits and pieces,” he replies, playing with the tips of Octavia’s hair. “I was so young when they died. Sometimes I think I know them more from stories and reputation than anything else. They were highly respected, even outside the Watcher community. Had they lived, they would have been the head of their clan.”

“So they were big shot Watchers,” she declares.

He smiles ruefully. “Sure. You could say that.” _That’s one way to describe the people who Saw the coming of the reincarnated_ Heda, _sure._

Octavia’s fingers lift to his left bicep, her thumb rubbing against the three black bands circling around his arm. “What about these?”

Lincoln stills, an involuntary pull dipping his heart in sadness. It must be written all over his face, because Octavia shifts off him, untangling their legs, and tucks herself into his side. She wraps a strong arm around his waist, then settles her head against his shoulder so she can look into his eyes more comfortably. He kisses her temple, breathes in the slight floral scent from the shampoo in her hair, and tries to draw as much comfort from her embrace.

“Those are for Costia and her parents,” he answers after a beat. “I wear these bands on this arm to keep them near my heart, as a reminder to always stay strong and be worthy of their sacrifice.”

“You must have meant a lot to them, for them to volunteer to save you.”

“After Indra, Ori and Amira were the closest I had to parents.” A memory crosses Lincoln’s mind, causing him to snicker. “Good thing, too. I wasn’t an easy child.”

Octavia laughs. “You? A difficult child? I find that hard to believe.”

“Raising a Watcher as a Mover and dealing with a child who had constant nightmares and visions of war?” Lincoln points out. Her grin slips off her face at that.

“So few understand what it’s like to live with visions of what may come. To See the paths not taken and be the only ones to know where they lead. It’s why we used to live together in clans, why so many Watchers only married other Watchers. ”

He smiles sadly. “Indra had the patience of a saint, but it was difficult for her, because she didn’t understand all the time how to help. She tried so hard. But she was also the Chief of TonDC. At the time, she was still struggling to help the district recover from being bombed the year prior. Having another Watcher my age and two adult Watchers nearby was a blessing, especially since there was no one left but us.”

“Right, I remember reading about that.” Octavia’s lips curve into a half-smile at his surprised face. “Bellamy's a huge nerd. Obsessed with military history. He said during the war, Watchers and Wipers were persecuted the most of the Psychics that didn’t go extinct.”

“Yes. Mental powers, especially precognition, made for valuable assets in the war. There aren’t many of us left, and most are under Division’s thumb.”

“It must have been hard to lose them.”

A heavy mix of emotion floats to the surface: anger, regret, and things he’s already forgiven Anya for because he knows she puts more blame on herself than he could ever cast at her. Now that he has some distance from it, he understands why she didn’t listen to his vision. He was a child, and a barely conscious one at that. But it still hurts. Ori and Amira were like family. Lincoln rubs his thumb against the icer scar on his chest.

What happened after they died is a blur in Lincoln’s mind, but he still remembers waking up to Indra’s worried face, Anya hunched in the corner, and Costia… Costia was at his bedside, relieved to finally see him awake but unable to hide the pain reflected in her eyes. She’d become an orphan like him, because of him.

Lincoln swallows hard at the memory, enough for Octavia to pick up on his distress.

“I’m glad Anya saved you,” she says, pulling her body closer. “Remind me to hug her next time I see her.”

The mental image of Anya’s face at being hugged by an enthusiastic Octavia pops into Lincoln’s head. He barks out a laugh, and just like that, the weight in entire room lifts and he can breathe again. Octavia joins in with his laughter, her joy melodious and soft in his ears.

 _She makes everything easier_ , he thinks again.

“So do you have to be a good artist to be a Watcher?” she asks curiously. “What if you’re crappy at drawing?”

“Then you find something else,” he replies, grateful for the change of subject. “I’ve seen visions depicted with clipped pictures and artwork from magazines and newspapers. Sometimes Costia and I used to help each other out with the drawings.”

“Do you ever share visions?”

“Sometimes. The one I had of Clarke was a shared vision.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Costia had that vision first. I was with her when she had it.”

“How old were you?”

“I was twelve. She was eight.”

“Well that explains a lot.”

Lincoln tilts his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“The super vague, ‘Clarke will fall from the sky’ stuff. If she was a kid Seeing Clarke falling from the stars, it makes sense that she might not realize that the stars were from a float.” She pinches him lightly in the ribs. “What’s your excuse?”

“ _Hey_ , technically she did fall from a pretty high ceiling,” he defends with a smile.

“Mmmhmm,” she hums. “And how long ago did you get _your_ vision?”

“A week ago.”

“Wow, so that was a really long time in between yours and hers,” she replies, dropping the teasing tone. “How did you even remember it was the same vision?”

Lincoln rubs his neck. This bit is always the complicated part of the story.

“Well, back then, we had help interpreting her vision. I was told I had to remember it. There was another Watcher there with us when Costia had her vision.”

He can still picture the woman sitting there, sketching in the middle of the field like she was waiting for Costia and Lincoln to arrive and tell her about their visions.

“When Costia described what she Saw, the Watcher told us that she had had the same vision and that I would have the same one someday too. She warned us that it was a very important vision, and that no matter what, we needed to be there for the  _Heda_ , to deliver her the message at exactly the right time, or we would never win the war.”

He takes a breath, preparing himself for the next part of the story, the part that hurts to most.

“Wait,” Octavia interrupts, her brow creasing in confusion. “I thought you said there weren’t any other Watchers in TonDC. Was this Costia’s mom?”

“Oh, no,” Lincoln chuckles, shaking his head. “I should have explained. Costia and I weren’t in TonDC at the time. We were miles away up north, wandering on our own when we met the woman.”

“How come?”

“Well, I had convinced Costia to come with me to look for a child I had seen in a vision.” He slants his head down to look at her.  “Actually, I meant to tell you yesterday. The child was you.”

 Octavia pulls away from him in surprise. “What?”

Lincoln sits up and reaches across the nightstand, pulling out his sketchbook. She leans up to sit next to him, her hair falling over her shoulder as she pulls the sheets up. He flips to the rough sketch of a six-year old girl surrounded by blue butterflies and hands the open page to her.

She scans the drawing, her hazel-green eyes widening in recognition as Lincoln observes her tentatively, trying to gauge her reaction. “You knew?” she says, almost whispering.

The inflection in her voice, the traces of betrayal and accusation in it, hits him harder than expected. He scratches behind his ear to hide his flinch.

“I didn’t actually. Not at first. All the times I have Seen you, you’ve been the age you are now or much older. It wasn’t until you started describing your escape yesterday that I understood. I was going to tell you, but then Clarke showed up.”

Octavia releases a shaky breath. “There’s gotta be some sort of joke here. Me being invisible, you Seeing me."

The restless sound of Octavia’s unnerved state throws Lincoln.

“You’re kinda hard to miss,” he flatters, hoping to smooth over whatever it is he’s said wrong.

“You said all the times you’ve Seen me I was this age ‘and much older.’ Exactly how often was that?”

He gets the feeling like she’s testing him somehow, only he doesn’t know what she’s looking for. All he has at his disposal is the truth. He swallows, wetting his throat before he speaks.

“I’ve Seen you so many times I’ve lost count,” he admits. “One of my first visions was of you handing me that paper flower, and after that, I couldn’t help but keep Looking for you.”

 _Wrong answer_ , he thinks as a frission of panic starts to crack through Octavia’s calm.

“You were Scrying for me? For how long?” she asks, her voice edged with distress.

“Years.”

“ _Years?!”_

“Since I was a child.”

A cold feeling runs through his veins when she doesn’t respond. The closed off look on her face makes Lincoln’s heart jump up in down in his ribcage in panic, because he doesn’t know how to fix this. He doesn’t know what he said wrong.

He suspects he knows her answer, but he feels compelled to ask all the same. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”

 _“YES_!” Lincoln swallows back the lancing pain in his chest at her words. “I mean, no! Maybe?” she backtracks. “I don’t know. It’s just _weird_.”

Suddenly the air in his lungs doesn’t feel sufficient. He forces himself to breathe. “Okay.”

He can feel the tension rising in the air and the waves of something too close to anger rolling off Octavia’s frame. This is exactly why they should have waited. He should have said something before they jumped together into bed. He should have known better.

Somehow he manages to find the strength to pull himself away her, flipping the sheets to get out. He starts to fumble for his clothes, trying to fight through the hurt.

“Do you want…I think I should go. You clearly need space.”

“Excuse me?” she says, her voice rising in indignation.

He cringes. “No, I didn’t mean you’re the one at fault here; this is on me. I should have told you when I had the chance so you knew what you were getting into. I’m sorry for that, and I understand if you regret—”

“Lincoln, stop,” she insists, pulling him back down onto the mattress. “Just give me a minute to process this, okay?”   

Confused, he sits, still unsure how to read her reaction. That she still wants him near her buoys his hope, but her look of consternation tells him that he has royally fucked this up, even if he still doesn’t know exactly how. He waits and watches her profile as she sits in quiet thought.

“Look, it’s not… I don’t regret sleeping with you, okay?” she says an excruciating long beat. Lincoln lets out an audible sigh of relief. “I like you. A lot. It’s just that you’ve known me your entire life, and I met you yesterday.”

She levels him with serious look, as if expecting him to say something in his defense, but he remains quiet, letting her take control of the conversation.

“The visions of the butterflies and the flower. Those were out of your control, right? Some of the visions you had of me you just got out of the blue, right?”

His head bobs furiously. “Most were,” he confirms. “Visions of big life events, life and death situations, that sort of stuff just happens.”

“Okay, but then that still means some visions you got because you were Looking for me. I know you’re a Watcher and everything, but seeking me out? That’s _weird_. And invasive. A more than a little creepy,” she says with a touch of disgust in her voice. “And why didn’t you say anything about the flower?”

He blinks. _Why didn’t he tell her?_ “I guess…it didn’t occur to me.”

“You didn’t think a vision _about me_ would be something I’d want to know?” she asks, growing more vocal and upset.

Lincoln takes a deep breath, wishing desperately in this moment that his best friend was still alive. He remembers how hard it was when Costia first started having feelings for Lexa, the conversations they shared about the difficulties of being with someone who doesn’t share the ability to Watch.

 ‘ _How do I tell her, Lincoln? How do I tell her the reason we shouldn’t be together is because she’s going to outlive me, but I can’t tell her why because I don’t want to change her fate?’_

Costia’s problem wasn’t exactly the same as his, but what he wouldn’t give now to have her help navigating through this. Visions have a way of wedging themselves between people, especially non-Watchers, and he doesn’t want that to happen to him and Octavia. He tries to think what Costia would have done, takes the time to find the right words.

 “You’ve been a part of my life for so long, I can’t remember what it’s like not to See you,” he begins slowly. “I’ve Seen so many terrible things. Blood, torture, things worse than death. You’re the only good thing I seem to remember.”

He stares at his hands in his lap, unable to look at her and risk seeing something he doesn’t want to see.

“That I had so many visions of you without trying meant that you were going to be a significant figure of my life. So when Indra told me to find a touchstone, I chose you. The beautiful, strong hero who reminds me of the good in the world.”

His mind jumps to the image he Saw of her, born from the drugs Dr. Tsing gave him the Mountain: of Octavia in Kevlar, a few years older than she is right now, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail to show fierce hazel-green eyes and a hint of a smile. In his vision, he Saw himself working with her, rescuing civilians and children from a fire, and the comfort of knowing that was his future calmed him.

“I knew that as long as I kept Seeing you in my future, no matter what torture or pain I felt at the time, I would get through it. That everything would be okay.”

Lincoln looks up, locking his eyes with her in as sincere a plea as he can muster.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you for so long, and I was so caught up in discovering things I didn’t know about you, I didn’t think about what it would feel like on your end. I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean, discovering things you didn’t know about me?” she asks after another lapse of torturous silence. “You just said you’ve basically Seen more of my life than I have.”

Lincoln shakes his head. “When Watchers See things, we don’t get context. I See what will happen, but I don’t know what you feel or why you’re doing what you do. All I get are pieces. Everything you told me was new to me. And I was so excited to learn about you, I forgot.”

Octavia sits back against the headboard, digesting this information.

“Besides, how do you tell someone that they’re the reason you didn’t go crazy as a kid because their mere existence kept you sane?” he adds, half-jokingly.

“I’m not that person, Lincoln,” Octavia says, with more fierceness than he expects. 

“What do you mean?”

She turns to him and catches his questioning gaze. “I’m not that hero you saw in all your visions.”

Lincoln’s eyes soften. “Not yet.”

Octavia lets a small groan. “UGH. No. _Stop_. Listen to me. This isn’t going to work if you don’t see me for who I am. I’m not perfect. I don’t make the best choices all the time. I’m just me.”

Lincoln narrows his eyes. “I know that.”

“I don’t want you to put me up on some pedestal. It isn’t fair. I don’t want to live up to some idea in your head of who you think I am.”

“That’s not what I’m doing!” he protests.

“You are!”

“I’m not!” he exclaims in frustration. “I don’t believe that you’ll become that hero because I’ve Seen it; I believe it because I believe in _people_! I believe it because I believe in _you_!”

She leans away, taken aback by his shout. Lincoln runs a hand over his head, rubbing against the stubble at the back of his skull. He takes a deep breath and begins again.

“I have Seen the best and worst of people. All the paths untaken. We all have monsters and heroes inside of us, and we’re responsible for the one we choose to let out. I have to believe that we can be better. That we can find a way to live together without ending in war and death. And you’re right; maybe you won’t make all the right choices. I’m not saying you will. But I believe we at least have to try. I hold the same standard to you as I do everyone else. Even myself.”

Lincoln shrugs. “Maybe that’s foolish. Anya always tells me it is. But what’s the point of visions if you can’t even imagine a better future?”

“And if I don’t end up being that hero?” she asks, quiet this time. “Will you still be with me then?”

Lincoln tilts his head back, eyes closed. “As long as you’re by my side trying to be better with me? Of course,” he sighs.

“Okay.”

He opens his eyes and turns to look at her, at the semi-mollified look on her face.

“Okay?” he ventures, because she doesn’t look like she’s okay.

“I get it.” She holds out a hand as he leans forward with hope. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t be in a relationship with someone who thinks that I’m something that I’m not. Let’s say you’re right, that one day I’ll be that person; I’m not that person now. I’m just me.”

Lincoln deflates at her words. He’s been so stupid. He reaches out a tentative hand to hold the wrist Octavia has extended towards him. When she allows it, he turns her arm up to show the intricate whirls of blue on her tattoo, tracing them with his thumb.

“Do you know why I liked hearing you talk about the butterflies?” he asks.

She shakes her head silently.

“Not knowing what the context was until you told me? It reminds me you're real, and I like the real you. There is so much more to you than anything I could have Seen in a vision.” He pulls her hand and presses it over his heart. “Who you are right now? Keeps me anchored and safe. You’re better than any dream.”

Everything he ever felt for Octavia before pales in comparison to what he feels now, because she’s solid and real, and just so much  _more_ — and it pains him that she doesn’t see it.

“Just you? Is always going to be enough,” he finishes.

Octavia’s shoulders still hold too much tension, her body betraying unspoken feelings. She doesn’t believe his words, and he wishes he knew how to erase the uncertainty in her eyes. He releases her hand with a sorrowful look.

“I’m sorry if I ever made you doubt that. I’m sorry for not saying anything before. I really am. It was never my intention to hurt you. I just hope I haven’t messed this up so much that you want to give up on us before we even begin.”

Lincoln holds his breath as she makes her decision. Finally she speaks.

“I’m going to need some time to adjust to this. And I’m still really angry at you for not telling me. That is _not_ cool. We need to draw boundaries if we’re going to keep going forward.”

He nods in response. Lincoln can give her that. He would give her the world, as long as they have a future together in it.

“You have to promise me you won’t go peeking ahead into my life again,” she continues.

“No more Scrying. I promise,” he replies, then pauses. “Except if I’m afraid that your life or someone else’s might be in danger. You have to allow me that.”

“Right. Life and death scenarios only. AND if you get a vision of me, you have to tell me.”

“Of course,” he agrees. Octavia looks more settled, and the panic in him has begun to recede, but he doesn’t want to take the chance that he’s misinterpreting anything. “So is that a yes, then? You do want to try and see where this goes?”

Octavia bites her lip. “It’s a maybe.”

Lincoln tries to school his face, but he knows that the crushing disappointment on his face shows.

“I think we need to slow down. See if we really want to be in a relationship.”

“I do. I’m in,” he insists.

“Well I’m not there yet,” she replies. “Like I said, I need time.”

“Okay,” he says in understanding. “So what does this mean?”

“It means…we get to know each other.  Without the sex,” she adds, as though it pains her to say it.

At the mention of the word, Lincoln’s eyes can’t help but roam up and down her body, his gaze drawn to the pink of her lips. He’s suddenly acutely aware of just how thin the sheet wrapped around her is, and already he misses the warmth of her touch.

“Can I still…do you want me to stop touching you? Are we talking hugs? What do you want?”

Octavia hesitates. She starts to scan the room. “I should probably put some clothes on. This conversation would be a lot less awkward that way.”

Lincoln looks away from the flash of skin, as she searches for her clothes and pulls them on. _She just told you she was uncomfortable with you Watching her,_ he chastises himself. He stares at the ceiling to prevent his eyes from wandering.

 _“_ I just think… Lincoln? What are you doing?” she asks, with a hint of amusement. “It’s not like you haven’t already seen everything.”

“Just trying to give you space until you say what’s okay,” he points out, keeping his eyes trained on the ceiling.

She tugs his chin down, and he catches the roll of her eyes as he slants his eyes down to look at her. She’s back in her underwear and tank-top, her bare legs stretched out in front of her. Somehow with more clothes on and her mussed up hair hiding half her face, she’s even more beautiful to him now than she was before. He can’t lose her.

“Tell me what you need from me,” he says again.

Octavia sighs, making a face as if torn on the matter. “I want to say no more touching until we decide that we’re really going to do this, because that’s the smart thing to do but…”

She groans, the back of her head hitting the headboard. “This would be so much easier if you weren’t such a good kisser.”

The exaggerated whine she makes sends his heart soaring with relief, the joke easing his worry.

She likes him. They’re joking again. He can do this.

“How about this,” he offers, “I won’t initiate. You tell me what you’re comfortable with. If I make you feel weird, you tell me right away and I back off, no questions asked. And whenever you’re ready—if you’re ready to take it to the next level,” he corrects, “you let me know.”

“Yeah. And same for me, okay?”

He tilts his head in question.

“Like before with that tattoo,” she gestures at his hip. “Or all that stuff with your friends and Anya. You don’t have to answer all my questions just because I ask.”

“I wanted to tell you all that before. I still do,” he insists.

She sits up, pushing the curtain of hair out of her face. “All right. So tell me.” Octavia picks up his book and hands it to him, shifting close enough so she can see. “Why don’t we start with which one of these is about me?”

Eager to prove her faith isn’t misplaced, Lincoln starts flipping through through it, searching through the page leafs. He ponders over which one he should start with, whether he should go chronological or by theme, when Octavia stops his hand.

“Wait, go back.”

He turns back a page, surprised to find that she’s honed in on the one drawing he keeps hidden away from the Commander at all costs.

“Lincoln, why do you have that woman in your book?” she asks, voice shaky and tense.

He hesitates, wondering what could have sparked this reaction. She can’t be upset at the drawing. It wouldn’t make any sense.

“Did you See her in one of your visions?” she presses on.

“No,” he answers. “That’s the Watcher Costia and I met in the butterfly field.”

Octavia’s jaw drops, her hand stilling over the drawing. “Holy shit.”

With a sudden leap, she darts out of the bed, almost tripping on the sheets.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” she chants as she yanks the corner of the twisted sheet off her ankle and runs into Monty’s closet, abandoning him in the bed.

Lincoln’s not sure what just happened. He stares at the empty space next to him, then cranes his head in Octavia’s direction, unsure if she wanted him to follow.

“Octavia?”

“When Costia told that lady about her vision, did you tell that Watcher about your vision with me and the butterflies too?” her muffled words call out to him through the wood paneling.

“Uh, yeah,” he calls back awkwardly. He reaches for his boxers and slips into them, standing. “Is everything okay?”

“Aha! Found it!”

Octavia comes out with a small box, tossing it on the bed. Lincoln opens the lid, surprised to find it filled to the brim with pictures.

“Yeah, cameras aren’t allowed for Psychics on the base, so pictures were hard to come by,” she explains, flipping through the photographs. “After they got out, Raven and Monty built one, and we kinda went crazy making up for lost time.”

“What is it you’re looking for?” Lincoln asks.

“That Watcher in your book is Raven’s mom. She’s the one who found me, remember?”

Lincoln’s heart starts to pound, hammering a buzzing beat in his head. He had been so fixated on the fact that he had actually Seen Octavia as a child that he had dismissed the part of the story where a  _Watcher_  had found her.

Raven’s mother is the Watcher who found Octavia. She has to be the same woman who told him and Costia about Clarke.

“We’ve been connected this entire time,” he says, still reeling from the shock.

Then Lincoln notices the photograph in Octavia’s hand, of Monty, Raven and Octavia gathered around a cake. The picture is dim, their faces lit only by the glow of the candles on the cake as Octavia blows at them, but the symbol of the All-Seeing Eye hanging around Raven’s wrist is clear.

“Octavia, where did Raven get that bracelet?” he asks, trying to keep his voice level and calm.

“Her mom gave it to her for her sixteenth birthday. It’s one of the only things from her mom she kept. Raven keeps saying she’ll sell it for money, but I think it means more to her than she’ll admit.” She looks up, sending him a small smile. “I told you I’d seen that symbol.”

Lincoln stands and starts to pace, his mind whirring as all the facts unscramble in his brain.

“Lincoln, what is it? What’s wrong?”

He sighs, putting his hands on his hips. “This symbol is the All-Seeing Eye. It’s the sigil of the Watcher’s Circle.”

“Okaaaaaaay,” she draws out, impatience creeping into her voice. “Still have no idea what that means.”

“It is an extremely secretive society of Watchers.”

Octavia straightens in attention, her eyes wide. “Are they part of the Resistance?”

“They’re the reason the Resistance exists. They developed at the beginning of the Psychic War when Watchers were first being targeted and killed. Since then, their goal has been to protect our own. All Watchers know about the society, have been helped by them in one manner or another. No one really knows how many there are. No one talks about it. My parents were part of them, and I barely know things about it.”

Her eyebrows rise to her hairline. “So you think Raven’s mom is a part of this secret society?”

“It’s possible. She might have even known my parents. And if she did…” he trails off. _Then she might know how they died._

“That’s insane,” Octavia protests, shaking her head. “I mean, she lives in Alpha. Everything Raven’s told me is that she’s loyal to Division. She’s like their number one Watcher. The only thing that she’s ever done that didn’t line up with their interests is…find me.”

She chews her lip in thought. “You really think she’s been with the Resistance this entire time?”

“Maybe. The Watcher’s Circle has always been in line with the Resistance. I just don’t know why we would have never known about her,” he replies.

A loud cough at the door startles them out of their wonder. Octavia lets out a small gasp as Monty walks in, hand over his eyes. She scrambles to find her pants, tossing Lincoln his clothes as Monty speaks.

“I really hope you plan on buying me a new bed, or you’re Shadowing this entire room for the rest of your life,” he says with a smirk, blindly stumbling into the room.

Octavia’s face twists in mortification as she yanks on her pants with record speed. “Monty, I’m so sorry,” she apologizes before Lincoln can finish putting on his pants.

Monty’s hand drops to his side, eyes bulging when he sees the state of Lincoln’s undress and the messy, unmade sheets. “OH MY GOD I WAS KIDDING. YOU HAD SEX _ON MY BED_?!” he yells. “I THOUGHT THOSE SOUNDS WERE VISIONS!”

Caught between Octavia’s flushed face and Monty’s scandalized look, Lincoln doesn’t know what to say, torn between the truth and following Octavia’s lead. The silence stretches on, and it only heightens the absurdity of the situation because he can’t believe that they forgot. 

Monty is a  _Sniff_. And they just had sex in his bed.

Lincoln can’t help the laugh that escapes his lips. Octavia shoots him a look, but there’s laughter in her eyes as well, and soon the two of them are cracking up together at the ridiculousness of the situation.  

“I can’t believe you’ve did this to me again, Octavia,” Monty whines.

Lincoln’s laugh dies. “Wait, again?”

“I’m burning those sheets,” Monty mutters.

“I’ll fix it, Monty. I promise,” she says sweetly. “What did you need?”

“Is Raven okay?” Lincoln adds.

“She’s still stable, but Maya says that she won’t last long without some real medical attention soon.” Monty hands Lincoln his phone. “I finally got it to work. We can make a call now.”

“Can it receive calls as well?” Lincoln asks.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

With the damage the phone took, there’s no guarantee that the encryption will still be in place. He has to assume Division can track the call. He’ll have to use the old system and hope someone is still monitoring it.

Lincoln takes the phone from him and punches in the number. He pauses before pressing the call button, mentally reviewing what he needs to do next. Monty and Octavia look on with anxious faces as he finally makes the call. After three rings, a cheery voice answers.

“Hello?"

“Hi, is this Joey’s Pizza?” he asks.

“I'm sorry. You have the wrong number,” she says sweetly and hangs up.

Lincoln ends the call, then stares at the phone, trying to ignore the confused looks Monty and Octavia are exchanging. _C’mon. Ring,_ he urges.

The phone rings, and he answers it immediately. He has thirty seconds before Division traces the call.

A tinny mechanized voice speaks. _*Please state your authentication code.*_

“Authentication code: Bravo, Charlie, Tango, Niner, Zero, One, Eight, Eight. Codename: Odin.”

_*Authentication code accepted. Welcome, Odin. Line is now secure.*_

A familiar voice picks up the line. “Lincoln?!?”

“Caris,” he sighs in relief. “Good. I need to get a message to Indra.”

*~*~*

For the record, Clarke is not sneaking.

To be sneaking would mean she’d be hiding, and Clarke isn’t hiding so much as she’s practicing the art of Pushing people to ignore her as she eavesdrops on conversations around the Commander’s war room.

It’s Lexa’s fault, really. She’s the one who said Clarke needs to practice.

She’s also the one that left Clarke and Bellamy going stir-crazy waiting in that room. It’s been two hours now, with no word from anyone, and if Clarke didn’t do _something_ , she’s pretty sure Bellamy was going to suggest leaving the silo on their own and figure their own way out to Raven and Octavia.

So instead she’s here, with open ears for any news, listening in the hallways for idle chatter.

It took some convincing for Bellamy to stay behind. Luckily, he’s finally come around to seeing that she’s trying to help him, but she still had a long argument with him over which one of them would stay in case someone came to get them.

Clarke _is_ the smarter choice to roam the halls. Except for Anya, all of Lexa’s people are scared of Clarke, and if caught, well, Lexa needs her. If she didn’t get angry after Clarke’s snooping landed her in Lexa’s private quarters, chances are no one would yell at her for walking the halls to the war room.

A slicing guilt runs through Clarke as she considers how much she is taking advantage of Lexa’s patience. Clarke can’t imagine the weight on her shoulders, to lead so many people and remain so calm in the face of crisis at her age.  Yet at every turn, Lexa has taken the time to answer any question Clarke has. She’s done nothing but shown consideration and concern for Clarke’s feelings and well-being amidst all that.

And yes, Clarke knows that Lexa has an agenda. She knows the Commander is trying to win her over to become another soldier in her war. Still, she can’t help but be drawn to the girl behind the title, to the genuine show of vulnerability and the caring heart she suspects Lexa reveals only to a select few. Lexa was too prickly in her hurt, pulled up her walls too fast for it all to be an act. The raw pain in her eyes when she explained the connection between their drugging protocol and a person she loved and lost— it was too personal for it not to be true.

It left Clarke wondering if perhaps she has it wrong. If maybe the mixed signals and that niggling feeling in the back of her head that Lexa is holding back have less to do with Bellamy and Clarke, and more to do with a personal struggle Lexa’s working through.

“Where’s Indra?” a harried young woman calls to the men standing next to Clarke, snapping her out of her thoughts.

From the looks of the girl, she’s come straight from the riots. Her battle gear and hair are dusty with soot, and her eyes are bloodshot, tear tracks lining her face amidst the dirt, the remnants from a tear gas attack. She clutches one arm in an awkward pose, holding it against her chest to keep it still.

“Caris, you’re hurt,” one of the men says.

Caris’ eyes dart back and forth between the men and Clarke, confused by Clarke’s presence. Before she can speak, Clarke closes her eyes and concentrates, a ring of black lining the edge of her vision.

**_*I’m just another soldier like you. Don’t even mind that I’m here.*_ **

Caris looks at Clarke again, then shakes her head, dismissing her.

“I have important news from Lincoln. Where’s Indra?” she asks again.

Clarke’s heart jumps at Lincoln’s name.

“She’s in the war room with the Commander.”

Caris rushes down the hall and Clarke follows, Pushing a blanket thought to anyone who crosses her path to ignore her presence. Whether or not it works, Clarke can’t tell, but no one questions or stops her, not even as she slips into the room with Caris.

In the war room, Lexa stands between Anya and Indra as they converse quietly an oversized map of Polis. Hiding in the shadows of the dark room, Clarke’s eyes follow Caris’ figure as she gives a note to Indra, whispering into her ear. Clarke strains to hear what they’re saying, but they’re too far.

With a deep breath, Clarke edges closer, Pushing her thoughts into the room.

**_*You can’t see me. I’m not even here.*_ **

Clarke examines the women in the room for any sign of a reaction as she steps out of the shadows, in plain view. Only Lexa’s voice falters for a fraction, like a hiccup, but she doesn’t react when Clarke stands across from her at the table, not even when Caris passes behind her to exit the room. No one pays Clarke any mind as Lexa continues to speak.

“I want every Stitch available either on site or here on deck to deal with the injured,” she orders.

“All but Nyko have been contacted and are already on their way,” Indra reports, reading the piece of paper.

“Where is Nyko?”

“He’s already on site. He was on his way to Lincoln.”

Anya and Lexa both look up at the news. “Is he injured?” Anya asks.

“No, but Lincoln said the one who was hit is in critical condition.”

“He made contact? Where are they?” Lexa demands.

“I have a location downtown.” Indra pauses, her face filled with a level of emotion that confuses Clarke.

“Commander,” she begins quietly, “I know it is much to ask, that one person’s life cannot be worth more than others, but I made a promise to Kala that I would take care of her boy. Please allow me to bring him home.”

Clarke watches as Lexa takes a moment to consider her request. Her heart sinks when she sees Lexa shake her head. “I need you here, Indra, coordinating your troops and the civilian efforts of your district. Yours is the face they recognize.”

Lexa’s words are jarring and tangle Clarke up in confusion at the logic. Lexa is the Commander of the Twelve Clans; why would Indra, not Lexa, be the face of the Resistance in TonDC?

For her part, Indra’s body stiffens at Lexa’s orders. Her chin rises as if steeling herself to do something against her nature. “Respectfully, Commander—”

But Lexa waves her hand, cutting her off. “Anya and I will go instead,” she declares, to Clarke’s and Indra’s mutual surprise. “Anya, call Nyko. Find out his location and tell them we’re picking him up. Then call Lincoln and let him know that we’ll be there within the hour.”

Anya frowns. “And how are we getting to them?”

“We drive.”

Clarke hasn’t actually seen genuine astonishment in Anya’s face until now. “Into those riots?”

“No. We’re going to send word to the rioters to pull back and head uptown,” Lexa replies matter of factly.

“You don’t wish to quell this violence?” Indra asks, frowning.

Anya’s eyebrows knit together, understanding catching. “You’re going to use them as a distraction. Keep Division’s eye occupied while we find Lincoln and the rest.”

“Yes.”

“Commander…” Indra begins.

“They’re already rioting, Indra. We might as well use that. And we need to get to your nephew.”

 _Her nephew?_ But then, that makes sense, Clarke realizes. Lincoln is a far cry from the hardened soldiers she has encountered in the silo, but if he was related to one of Lexa’s generals…

“And then what? What is our exit strategy for that many people?” Anya demands.

Clarke raises an eyebrow, unsure what to make of the open challenge in Anya’s voice, or the lack of reaction from Indra or Lexa for that matter. The dynamic between Anya and Lexa is still something she is figuring out. It’s hard to track as Anya shifts from the formal respect due to Lexa’s title to the admonishing tone of a parent in the blink of an eye. Their bond is deeper than just teacher and former student; Anya’s opinion matters to Lexa, Clarke notes, filing the information away.

“We change the narrative,” Lexa declares. “Start to pass the word. We did not start this fight, but we will not stop defending ourselves, and we will continue to fight for our right to live even if it means taking the entire Mountain down.”

She reaches over the map and places two markers, away from the downtown area near the Dropship.

“Tomorrow morning, we start peaceful protests, in uptown near the Normals’ residences are and in midtown by the financial district. Call the reporters and news outlets. Get everything on broadcast and make some noise. I want Movers on the ground to minimize the casualties, but no one strikes the first punch. Only if they strike at us do we strike back—but if they do, we put them in the ground. In the meantime, Anya and I go in, get Lincoln, get out. That’s the plan.”

“Yes, _Heda_ ,” Indra salutes, straight-faced and stoic, but Clare can spot the gratitude in her eyes.

An unspoken thanks passes between Indra and the Commander, and to be honest, Clarke is grateful too. Bellamy will be relieved to know that they’ll be on their way to Octavia and Raven soon. It’s good news, even if it still eludes her grasp why Lexa can afford to leave at a time like this. She’s missing something in Lexa’s reasoning.

From the looks of it, she’s not alone, either. As Indra leaves, barking orders in her wake, Anya hovers at Lexa’s side, hand on her hips as she glances over Lexa with an evaluating look.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, though she says it as if she already knows the answer.

“We cannot win the war without Lincoln. He is our only Watcher,” Lexa replies, without looking up.

“And he is like to family to _me_ , but I have to say, I’m a surprised you are so willing to go to such an extreme for Lincoln when you never have before, not even when we almost lost him that time in the Dead Zone.”

“We’ve never been so close to defeating Division before. He is indispensible now.”

“And you’re willing to sacrifice all those people for safe passage.” There’s a question in her statement. Her voice softens in a way Clarke can’t quite read, whether it’s gratitude or disappointment. “I thought I’d have to fight you more on that. I know how much you hate it.”

“Of course I hate it,” Lexa says, a quiet regret tinging her words. “But it is the fastest way, in and out.”

“You’re sure you want to invite trouble tomorrow? Using tonight’s rioters is one thing. But tomorrow…” Anya trails off. “Peaceful or not, you know if they protest, they’re going to get gunned down.”

Lexa straightens, squaring her shoulders, her chin high. “Victory is built on the back of sacrifice. You taught me that. If Division strikes first against peaceful protesters, it only helps incentivize the masses to join our cause.”

Anya’s eyebrows rise at the reply. “And you’re fine with that.”

The repeated question rankles Lexa’s resolute poise. Clarke notices the suppressed roll of Lexa’s eyes, impatience cracking through her calm veneer. “What is it, Anya? Speak your mind.”

“Tell me that this isn’t about reuniting Bellamy and Clarke with their friends and keeping a promise to them to try to win them over,” she states, the challenge plain in her voice.

Clarke’s heart starts to beat faster at the mention of her name.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice earlier that you conveniently left out what happens to people who know your identity if they are not loyal to the cause,” Anya continues.

A churning mix of fear and a foreboding sense of danger starts to build inside Clarke with every word. What _does_ happen to people who aren’t on their side?

Lexa waves a dismissive hand. “There is still time to convince them to join.”

“And if they cannot be convinced?” Anya counters. “You know what must be done, to all of them.”

 _What? What must be done?_ Clarke feels her control of her Push slipping, panic solidifying into chunks and lodging in Clarke’s lungs, making it hard to breathe.

“It won’t come to that.”

“It might. And you have to be ready, because if you aren’t and you don’t order their executions—”

“You’d really order our deaths if we don’t join?” Clarke blurts out in shock.

Lexa and Anya look up at her, startled. _Shit._ They can see her. Lexa’s words taunt at her in the back of her mind: _‘lose control of your emotions; lose control of your powers.’_

Lexa’s Commander mask falls for a second, a flash of panic flitting past her eyes for an instant before it’s gone, but Anya rounds on her in a flash, blinking out of sight. Before Clarke can recover, she finds herself flat on her back, hitting the table hard, throat pinned down by a forceful hand. Anya’s angry face snaps back into focus above her, breathing heavily against her cheek. Clarke claws at her hands, fear breaking her concentration as she tries to Push Anya to let go, but then Lexa’s voice cuts through the room.

“Anya, stop,” she commands.

Anya loosens her grip. Clarke coughs as the air rushes back into her lungs.

“If you’re going to get caught, don’t bother spying,” she snarls at Clarke, before releasing her with a rough shove. Anya’s eyes narrow into slits of anger, locked onto her, as she stalks back to Lexa’s side, placing herself between Lexa and Clarke. Clarke swallows as she stands, rubbing at the bruises sure to be forming on her neck.

“Clarke. What are you doing out here?” Lexa manages to ask in a neutral tone. Her unruffled composure only riles up Clarke’s temper again.

“Answer my question first,” she demands, stepping closer until she’s face to face with them.

Lexa straightens, her face unreadable and unflinching. “Very few know my secret, Clarke. The majority of Resistance knows only the title. My protective detail and the generals are the only ones who know who I am.”  

“Those who are not loyal are threats to be eliminated,” Anya cuts in, glaring down at Clarke. “No exceptions.”

“Anya,” Lexa warns.

Clarke stands her ground and forces herself not to recoil at the threat. She doesn’t know what she did to piss Anya off, but that woman really hates her. That never stopped Clarke before, though, and right now, the self-righteous anger boiling in her blood spurs her to meet the challenge.

She steps closer, enough to be in striking distance, ratcheting the tension up in room. “Did I do something to offend you? Because you seem to have a problem with me ever since we got here.”

“You’re an outsider. You can’t be trusted.”

“And _you_ can’t just kill anyone who doesn’t join your cause,” she argues.           

“We can, and we have, which is how we’ve survived this long,” Anya fires back.

She flicks her eyes at Lexa before meeting Anya’s flinty stare. “They saved your lives. What you’re suggesting…it’s wrong.”

“No, it’s war,” Anya scoffs, folding her arms on her chest. “This is bigger than just you, Sky Girl. The Commander is the Resistance. Without her, it crumbles. Protecting the _Heda’s_ identity from Division is paramount to anything else.”

Lexa steps between them, hand up. “Enough. Anya, give us the room.”

A hint of petty satisfaction flares in Clarke as a look of betrayal crosses Anya’s face. _Clarke = 1, Anya = 0_

“Lexa…”

“That’s an order. You have calls to make.”

She looks at Anya, in yet another one of their infuriating silent exchanges. Then Anya straightens and salutes, knocking Clarke’s shoulder hard as she exits. Clarke resists the urge to rub the tender spot where solid muscle jammed into her.

The door slams behind her. Clarke is left with only Lexa, the Commander mask vanished, the rigid posture replaced by a softer fall of her shoulders. The tension in the room diminishes, but Clarke holds on to her ire, brandishing it like a weapon to protect her.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she demands again.

Lexa looks at her plainly, her eyes betraying the only hint of remorse. “I didn’t want to force your hand. I wanted you to join us on your own volition. I wanted you to trust me.”

“Trust goes both ways, Lexa. You can’t keep things like this from us.”

“It was never going to be an issue,” she dismisses, then catches herself, eyeing Clarke’s neck. Her voice melts in reassurance. “I would have never allowed any harm to come to you, Clarke. You’re too important.”

Clarke’s mind stutters to a stop. Lexa’s words send butterflies fluttering in her stomach, the gentle sincerity throwing her off balance. _She really needs to stop saying things like that. She doesn’t mean it that way._

Lexa looks at her with open, honest eyes. The righteous anger coursing through Clarke shuts off for a moment as a feeling of safety replaces it, calming her fraying edges. Clarke allows herself to relax into the feeling just for a second, drinking in the momentary reprieve from the constant press of the world closing in on her.

She believes Lexa at her word, that she would protect Clarke, even if it meant going against their ways. She would— and if Clarke is willing to admit it, already has allowed Clarke to be the exception, despite all the mixed signals.

The only problem is Clarke doesn’t want to be the only exception.

“Okay, but what about the others? Bellamy and Raven and Octavia.”

Lexa shifts, her mouth pressing in a thin line. “These are our ways. And you know as well as I the importance of keeping secrets. After all, you lied to Bellamy and Octavia yourself.”

“That was for their protection,” Clarke argues.

“And this is what must be done for ours.”

“If you do this, I will _never_ help you,” she presses back. “You can find someone else to win your war.”

Lexa levels Clarke with an appraising look. She shifts again, her tone as close to a plea for understanding one can sound without actually conceding fault.

“Even if I let Bellamy and the others go, I cannot protect all of them from those who might take action against them on my behalf.”

“You’re the Commander. Isn’t your word law?”

Lexa looks away, sitting down at the table covered with maps and papers. She gazes up at the muted screens, still showing footage of the riots. The faint glow illuminates one side of Lexa’s face, the open worry for her people etched on her face.

“I cannot control everything or be everywhere at once. Quint’s men and the riots tonight are proof enough of that,” she tells Clarke quietly, staring at the screen. “Division’s oppression has gone on too long. It has made our people unpredictable. They are too angry, hungry for retribution. It is my job to use that anger and channel it into an attack.”

Something in Clarke’s mind clicks as she traces the outline of Lexa’s profile, a new side she’s discovered between the Commander and the girl. Lexa isn’t just a leader who is respected and obeyed; she is also the _Heda,_ the one destined to save them all. Indra’s switch from the formality of ‘Commander’ to the reverence of ‘ _Heda’_ sits in Clarke’s head, and it brings with it the realization of just how heavy the weight of duty and destiny is, to live up to that expectation from people twice her age.

Lexa turns back to her, the pain folding up and tucked away behind a wall of control and self-possession, all before her eyes even finish rising to meet Clarke’s gaze. Clarke’s heart clenches at little at the practiced efficiency of the action.

“I cannot do that if I am protecting all of you from threats within,” Lexa finishes.

Clarke falters in the face of the logic in her argument. The politics of Lexa’s position complicate everything, but there has to be some hope, some sort of way to get out of this.

“What if I Pushed everyone to stop them from killing them?”

“The entire Resistance? We both know you’re not that disciplined.”

“Well there has to be another option! They saved your life in the warehouse! They deserve the chance to live the lives of their choosing.”

“Sometimes, we don’t get to choose our fates,” she says gently. “You can’t save everyone, Clarke.”

“That’s not good enough, Lexa.”

Clarke paces, runs a hand through her hair. She wracks her brain, trying to fight for a solution, as Lexa sits next to her in silence.

“Are you going to tell Bellamy?”

Clarke hesitates, torn between logic and loyalty. Bellamy would have a fit if he found out, but Clarke doesn’t want to damage the fragile trust they’ve only started to build by keeping this from him.

“Not until we come up with a solution,” she sighs, leaning against the table.

Clarke sneaks another peek at Lexa’s profile, noticing the way her jaw clenches in response. “You’ve really killed people for not joining the cause?”

“We take great pains to prevent people from knowing my identity. Right now, I am the only thing the generals can agree on. Their belief in the vision that I am the reincarnated _Heda_ is the only thing keeping the council together, because they’ll all take direction from me. If I die…” she trails off.

“The Resistance breaks.”

Lexa nods. “The ruse we played on you today is not the first time we’ve used that tactic. Anya and Gustus have been at my side since I was a child, taking turns posing as the Commander as needed. I owe them my life many times over; there have been many attempts to eliminate the Commander, but none have known to aim for me. No one suspects that the leader of the Resistance is the young girl in the corner.”

“And if someone did?”

“They are given the choice of life here or death, yes.”

Clarke frowns. There’s an obvious solution, but she doesn’t see why they skipped over it and went straight to killing. “Why can’t you get a Wiper to erase their memory?”

“We don’t have any Wipers in our ranks. None that we trust.”

Clarke’s mind flicks to the still unknown Wiper who erased her mind. The mysteries behind her parents’ connection to the serum, her false memories, and how she wound up in the hospital must be tied together, and that Wiper is her prime suspect for the one with all the keys.

“What if I could guarantee you a Wiper?” she suggests. “Then we let everyone decide. Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, anyone who knows your identity makes their own choice, and the ones who don’t want to join the Resistance get Wiped of all knowledge of you and anything involved in the Resistance.”

Lexa raises an eyebrow. “You’re talking about the same Wiper who erased your mind.”

“Yes.”

“And you know where this Wiper is?” she inquires.

“I was going to have to track him down next anyway. With the serum gone, he’s the best lead to finding my dad and figuring out what is going on in my head. We just have to find him first. If it is a he.”

Lexa looks at her with a sidelong glance. “And what if this Wiper isn’t willing to join the cause as well?”

Clarke pushes the tiny prick of guilt to the back of her head. She repeats Bellamy’s words in a loop in her mind: _‘Everyone’s just trying to survive.’_

“You leave that to me,” she replies, crossing her arms over her chest.

Clarke holds her breath and waits as Lexa makes her decision. An eternity goes by, agonizing and slow. Finally Lexa stands and holds out her hand.

“Very well. You may all make your own choices, provided you can find that Wiper and he’s willing to join our side.” Clarke exhales in relief, clasping her hand. Lexa grips her fingers and pulls her back as she tries to step away and release it. “But Clarke, if you can’t?”

Clarke’s hand grows clammy with sweat. “I know. We join or die.”

 

 


	9. Act III: Destiny's Child (3/3)

To say that the apartment has descended into chaos is an understatement, Maya decides.

The arrival of Lincoln’s friends came with a loud ruckus: a small stampede up the stairs, a short glimpse of Octavia’s brother before she jump-tackled into his arms, and strings of questions uttered amid relieved greetings. The Stitch, Nyko, was easy enough to identify; doctors always recognize their own. It was the concerned look on his face amid the happy reunions surrounding him, the urgent way he kept scanning the room for his patient that gave him away. Maya flagged him down, waving him over from the entrance to Raven’s room.

A crowd of worried friends soon followed, too many for Nyko and Maya to maneuver in the small space. It took more than a little wrangling to herd them all out. Maya’s thankful Monty insisted they leave, allowing Lincoln to stay only at Nyko’s instruction. She’s not sure her nerves would have held up under all that scrutiny.

Even now, with everyone on the other side of the door, Maya can hear the cacophony of voices filling the apartment. She tries to block it out and concentrate on her patient.

 _It’s not Raven; it’s just another patient,_  she reminds herself.  _You can do this._

“You took the bullet out?” Nyko murmurs quietly, examining Maya’s handiwork.

“No.”

The stoic, silent man strokes his beard in thought. “Good. I’ve administered all the anesthesia I have. She will only feel some uncomfortable pressure, but I need you to keep her in place as much as you can. Lincoln, please help them hold her down.”

Nyko’s hands stretch out, hovering over Raven’s bare back, and they begin to twist in practicing motions without touching her skin. Maya recognizes the action, knows he is visualizing how he’s going to Stitch her up, but a wave of shock hits her when she spots the pattern of his movements.

 _He’s going to push the bullet out and Stitch her up as he goes,_  Maya realizes with wide eyes. She’s studied enough with Dr. Griffin to know what he’s planning, but she’s only seen Dr. Griffin Stitch up a wound like this once before.

The task is daunting, especially without the sterilization of a surgery room, but Maya shoves past her fear. Raven needs to be as still as possible for this to work. She sends Monty a reassuring look to quell the uncertainty in his eyes. She motions for him to move as she kneels down, holding Raven’s head and neck steady. Monty reaches for her legs, while Lincoln pins Raven’s torso down with strong arms.  Then Maya watches as Lincoln’s friend finally places his hands on the mottled skin of Raven’s back.

“This will only hurt a little. I promise,” he whispers to Raven’s sleeping form.

Then, with closed eyes and focused concentration, Nyko begins.

Raven’s body starts to contort into unnatural shapes, causing her to wake with a loud gasping breath over the crunch of muscles and bone. Her spine curves up, almost protruding out of her skin. Nyko’s hands manipulate her muscles, molding them like clay and pressing them together to push the bullet out. Raven lets out a small whine as the bullet rises out of her back, until finally the tiny piece of metal pops out the open wound.

Only a few, thin streams of blood trickle out the wound; Raven’s body keeps the rest of her blood from escaping the gaping hole under Nyko’s manipulations, a terrible sucking sound from the wound that makes Maya cringe.

Then Nyko runs his hands over her skin, pushes back down on her spine and starts to close the wound. Maya can see the veins appearing and disappearing, rippling in movement under translucent skin. The bones snap, crack, and pop back into place. Her skin knits together like webbing, soon erasing the hole as Nyko kneads her body back into shape, Stitching her back together.

When he’s done, he pulls away to reveal flawless skin. There isn’t even a scar.

Raven heaves in loud pants, still only half conscious as her body relaxes, the noises from her throat dying down into quiet whimpers. Maya wipes her brow and brushes sweaty strands of Raven’s hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. 

Monty offers her a hand, and Maya clasps it to pull herself to her feet.

“Did it work?” Monty asks.

Nyko sinks into the chair in the corner, draining a bottle of water from his bag. “Let her rest for a while. When she’s ready, I’ll siphon out the anesthesia from her body to administer the tests. Then we will see.”

“What’s the best case scenario?” Maya asks, one doctor to another.

His face is grim, glancing over Raven’s exhausted form.

“Best case, she goes back to the way she was. I was able to repair the damage from the bullet. Her internal organs are no longer ruptured. You did well to wait. But I will not lie, the damage to her spine was extensive, and she already has an old injury that never healed properly. My expertise does not extend that far.”

“So the worst case?”

Nyko’s head ducks down as he runs a hand through his long hair. Maya can’t tell if that’s from his own spent energy level too, or if the news truly is that bad.

“She may have lost the ability to walk. If so, she’ll need a Stitch who has surgical training to fix the nerves in her spine.”

Monty’s face blanches. “Is there anything else you can do?”

Nyko stands tiredly, stretching out his back. “I am sorry. I have done all I can. The best I can offer is the promise of supplies to help build another brace if she cannot walk.”

Lincoln approaches, offering his hand. “Nyko, thank you.”

“For you, my friend, anything,” he replies, grasping Lincoln’s forearm and embracing him. “I would not still have my wife and child, if it were not for you.”

Lincoln winces as he pulls back, and Nyko laughs. “I’ll tend to your injuries next, and anyone else who needs healing. I just need to recharge first. Is there a place I can rest?”

A loud clatter of pots and pans and angry shouts cut off any answer to his question. Maya watches in alarm as Monty and Lincoln rush out of the room to find out what is going on. She looks back and forth between the open door and Raven, torn.

“Go. I’ll stay with her,” Nyko says.Maya nods her thanks and runs out the door.

A tense scenario greets her: in the kitchen, Bellamy pulls back a furious Octavia, who is locked in a shouting match with a blonde girl, while a fierce brunette stands between her and Octavia, glaring. Lincoln makes his way to Octavia’s side, while Monty picks up fallen pots with hesitation, uncertain how to intervene.

“You told us your name was Clarke Walters,” Octavia accuses. “You’re a fucking liar.”

“We have bigger problems than this, Octavia,” she replies hotly. “They are making Normals into Psychics.”

“O, Clarke’s mom is Abby Griffin,” Bellamy interjects. “She’s the only one who knew about you, other than Mom. No way is she working with that scumbag Wallace. Mom wouldn’t have trusted her otherwise.”

Maya’s eyes widen at the mention of Dr. Griffin.

“Wait, you’re  _Clarke Griffin?_ ” she blurts out, shock written all over her face. “Everyone in the base thinks you’re dead.”

“Who are you?” Clarke asks.

“I’m Maya. I work with your mom in Mt. Weather.”

“My mother is alive?”

Before she can blink, the Resistance fighter next to Clarke— a  _Mover,_  Maya realizes too late— draws her gun and Sends it flying to Maya’s head. A cold terror locks up Maya’s entire body, paralyzing her from head to toe as the cool metal presses hard against her forehead.

“Commander, wait!” Octavia yells.

“You’re from the Mountain,” the Commander snarls. “What are you doing here?”

The answers are in her, but Maya can’t get her brain to catch up. All she can see is gun, gun, danger, gun. She flinches as the metal digs into her skin, close enough that a faint smell of gunpowder and flint hits her nose. She closes her eyes and tries to keep breathing.

“Stop it!” Monty shouts. “Commander or whoever you are, stop. This is  _my_  home. We know Maya. She saved my life, and Raven’s.”

Maya cracks open her eyes and sees both Octavia and Monty, placing themselves in front of her, trying to block the Commander’s view of the floating gun.

“We trust her,” Octavia explains, “which is more than I can say for Pusher Girl over there.” She gestures rudely at Clarke, and it only makes the Commander Dig the gun in harder.

“Please stop pointing that gun at my head,” Maya says, finding her voice, shaky and cracking though it may be.

“Tell us, how did they make Clarke into a Pusher?” the Commander demands, ignoring the rest of them.

Monty’s head whips back and forth in confusion. “I thought Cage was the Pusher.”

“He is. I am. We both are,” Clarke replies, rubbing her forehead. She puts her hand on the Commander’s shoulder. “Lexa, please,” she pleads. “This isn’t necessary. She’s not a threat.”

For a second, Maya feels the floating gun pull back a fraction, falling lower between her eyes. Clarke exchanges a loaded look with the Commander.

It almost works.

But then hard anger flares back up in the Commander’s eyes. The gun’s muzzle jabs even harder into Maya’s skin.

“Stop it, Clarke. She knows things, and she says she works with your mother,” the Commander growls, then snaps her attention back to Maya. “Did they use the serum on her? Is that how it works?”

“What serum? I don’t know of any serum,” Maya cries, starting to shake in terror. Her knees are weak, and she feels like she’s going to vomit. “Please take the gun away from my head,” she begs again.

Suddenly, Bellamy shoots out his arm and Throws the gun away. Maya ducks, crawling behind the dining table for cover. The weapon flies to the side, but the Commander Pulls it back in Maya’s direction with one hand and Sends a shockwave to knock Bellamy over with the other. Octavia begins to yell, pitching herself forward, but Lincoln grabs her by the waist and holds her back, out of the line of fire. Clarke uses the distraction to place herself in the middle of the gun’s path, and she starts shouting for Lexa to put the gun down.

Somewhere in the chaos, Bellamy gets back up and raises his arms up. Monty looks like he’s trying not to panic at the small brawl that is unfolding in his home, and Maya just wants to go back into Raven’s room. This has got to be the longest night of her life.

Then, in a swift move, the silent Asian woman, whom Maya just noticed standing in the corner, throws a knife at the light switch. All the shouting ceases as the room plunges into darkness. The woman switches on the lamp next to her, her terrifying face underlit by the warm glow of the lamp.

“The next one goes into whoever tries to shout over another person again,” she threatens, glowering at all of them.

Electricity sparks from the light switch, as if underlining her point. Monty makes a face. “Raven just fixed that,” he complains

“Was that really necessary, Anya?” Clarke sighs.

“It wouldn’t be if you _children_ would try acting like adults and speak one at a time.”

The admonishment deflates the tension in the room, every face turning away in sullen embarrassment and avoiding each other’s gaze. Monty shakes his head and starts to turn on more lamps to fill the room with more light, and it’s almost as if with every click of a switch, their childish behavior becomes more illuminated. After a moment of awkward silence, Clarke takes command and begins again.

“Octavia, I’m sorry I lied to you and Bellamy,” she says in calm, reasoned voice. “I’ve already explained it to him, but I lied about my last name because I was trying to give you plausible deniability in case Division agents asked about me by name. I was trying to keep you safe.”

Bellamy nods in confirmation.

Octavia’s chin juts out in defiance. “Anything else you kept from us?”

Clarke exchanges an uneasy look at Bellamy. Maya can’t tell if it’s because he’s been glaring daggers at Lincoln for standing too close to his sister, or if it’s something else. Clarke raises an eyebrow, evidently letting Bellamy field the question, and he eases back, fixing a calmer demeanor on his face.

“Clarke’s on our side, Octavia,” Bellamy placates. “She’s going to help us get Mom out. You were right.”

Octavia tilts her head, shooting them a strange look with narrowed eyes. Her jaw moves behind a scowl for a tense moment until finally, she relents.

“Of course I was right,” Octavia huffs. “Just don’t do it again.”

Clarke relaxes, then turns to address her. “Maya, please explain how you know me.”

“I don’t. I’ve only seen a picture of you and your family from when you were a kid. Your mom used to have it in her office, before…” Maya shakes her head, her brain still trying to sort out this insanity. “Clarke, everyone thinks you’re dead. You died in an explosion seven months ago. There was a memorial and everything.”

“The explosion on the west side of Alpha,” Bellamy breathes.

A strange look passes behind Clarke’s eyes, a flash of recognition and something else. “You said there were forests surrounding the gates, right?” she asks Bellamy.

“Yeah, tall trees everywhere. Easy to hide around.”

“I think I remember the explosion,” Clarke says, blinking. “I thought it was a dream but I’m pretty sure I saw it. I think I saw how we escaped.”

Before Maya can process that information, the Commander cuts in. “If you aren’t with Division, then what business do you have here?”

“I needed to talk to Raven.”

“Regarding?”

Maya sends her a steely look with a sudden burst of courage. _No one finds out the details before Raven._

“None of your business,” she says, surprising herself with how firm and steady her voice stays.

Monty sidles next to her, arms folded over his chest. “This is my home,” he repeats. “If you don’t like her here, you can leave. She’s one of us.”

Maya’s heart swells, her lips curving up at the conviction in Monty’s voice. 

“If that were true, then why does she still work at the base?” Anya speaks, filled with suspicion.

“I can’t leave. Because I helped Monty and Raven escape, they took my dad. I have to pretend that I am on their side, or they’ll kill him.” Maya swallows hard at the thought.

Clarke looks at her in sympathy. “What do you know about the serum?” she asks kindly.

“Nothing. What is this serum?”

“We don’t know how Cage Wallace became a Pusher,” Bellamy explains, “but we think it has to do with a serum Clarke had with her. They were looking for it.”

“Which resulted in the warehouse going ka-boom,” Octavia chimes in, miming an explosion with her hands.

“Setting aside the fact that Pushers went extinct about forty years ago, so the fact that we’re even talking about Pushers is crazy, by the way,” Maya adds, “If Cage is really a Pusher, that’s not common knowledge in the Mountain. If they ever found out he was a Psychic…”

Monty snaps his fingers. “Wait, you said that they were doing some crazy experiments on Normals. That must be what it is.”

Maya pauses to consider the implications. It’s possible, but there’s still something missing from the equation.

“So where is this serum now?” Monty asks.

Clarke turns her head, glancing at the Commander. “It was lost. Most of it got into Lexa’s blood.”

“Which resulted in fireballs,” Octavia chimes in again.

Maya frowns in confusion. “That’s not possible.”

“The fireballs? Trust us; it’s possible,” Bellamy says with an empty laugh.

“No, I mean it’s not possible that the serum does two different things. Genetically, it can’t be done.”

The Commander’s eyes narrow. “Explain.”

“Everything we know about medicine and the human body tells us that Normals and Psychics have drastically different genetic makeups. Now, I can understand a serum that turns all Normals into Psychics, and I can understand a serum that boosts all Psychic powers up, but not a serum that does both.”

“You’re saying that we’re dealing with two different issues,” Clarke says.

Monty’s eyes light up, and Maya knows he’s made a breakthrough, an idea sparking in his head and spurring him into action.

“There are actually three different issues!” he shouts in excitement, running to the corner of the room. He wheels a tall whiteboard in front of them and starts to wipe it clean, his arms moving in wide, wild arcs. “Maya’s right. Look at what we know.”

He uncaps the marker, scribbling with manic enthusiasm as he speaks.

“You have Clarke, who has two different powers— which is, you know, _insane_. Cage Wallace is suddenly a Pusher, and we know from Maya that they’re experimenting with Normals now, not just Psychics. But we _don’t_ know if he actually took the serum. Or you, Clarke. The only person who we know who has definitely taken this serum is the Commander.”

“How did it affect you, other than the fireballs?” Maya inquires, all fear replaced by scientific curiosity.

“I am in perfect health,” the Commander replies stiffly under her probing look. “Better than, actually. I’m ten times stronger than I used to be. Things that used to take extreme concentration, I can do with ease.”

“So whatever was in the serum boosted your ability to Move,” Monty says. “And I’m guessing if any one of us took it, it would boost our abilities too. That’s enough for Division to want to keep it out of our hands.”

Bellamy frowns. “So what’s turned Clarke and Cage into Pushers?”

“Why are we all assuming that Clarke was turned into a Pusher?” a new voice cuts in from the corner.

“Raven!” Octavia calls.

They all turn to see Nyko carrying Raven in his arms. Maya’s heart sinks when Raven points, directing him to the dining table instead of attempting to hobble over there herself. Raven’s pride would have never allowed her to be seen as so vulnerable if necessity didn’t force her hand, which can mean only one thing:   _she can’t walk_.

They all crowd around as Nyko places her gently into a seat at the table. Maya hovers, while Octavia and Monty take turns hugging her. Clarke approaches with caution, looking for all the world that she wants to hug the girl too, but unsure as to how Raven will react.

“Should you be up?” she hedges, biting her lip.

Raven looks at her for a long beat, then twists her mouth into that trademark smirk of hers. Clarke exhales and smiles back, wrapping her arms around Raven. Maya isn’t sure what conversation she just missed, but she’s glad for the peace all the same.

“You guys were making such freaking racket. No one could sleep through that,” Raven teases as she releases Clarke.

Maya places her hand on Raven’s shoulder, and Raven softens, looking up in gratitude. “Thanks for the save, girlie. I owe you twice now.”

“But you can’t…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says, donning a brave smile. “I’ll do what I always do. Build a better brace. I already talked with Nyko about what I need.”

Raven clears her throat when she realizes that everyone is focused on their conversation. She lifts her chin high, eyes darting to the board. “So why are we assuming that Clarke was turned into a Pusher?” she asks again.

“Because her dad’s Jake Griffin,” Octavia replies.

“Well, shit. So Cage wasn’t lying.”

Raven sighs and leans back in her chair. She scans the writing on the board, squinting at Monty’s scribbles, and then slants her head to the side in careful thought. After a short beat, Maya sees it. That gleam in her eye: the one Raven, Monty and Jasper always got whenever Jasper would yell, ‘We’ve got science to do!’ Some things never change.

“Have you ever considered that her father was a Pusher, she was born a Pusher, and they’ve been hiding it this entire time?” Raven posits. “Pushers put thoughts into your head. If anyone could live undetected and fool the doctors, it would have been them.”

“You said Psychics back then used to try to pass as Normal during the war.” Bellamy looks Anya. It catches Maya by surprise, because she doesn’t think Anya is old enough to know anything of the war first-hand. “Is that even possible, for one of them to have escaped from the concentration camps?”

“You’d be surprised what things you can do if it means you’ll survive,” is her only reply.

Clarke shakes her head in frustration. “It doesn’t matter whether I was born a Pusher or not. It still doesn’t explain the visions.”

“If your dad’s a Pusher, maybe he gave you the visions,” Raven continues to argue her point.

Too many emotions flit across Clarke’s face at Raven’s words, too fast for Maya to read her reaction. For a faint moment, Clarke is a perfect imitation of her mother in crisis mode: the way her eyes open and close a fraction too slow, the way she takes a discrete, shallow breath to center herself. Those are the exact actions Dr. Griffin does when she’s stumbled upon a complication during surgery.

“Clarke, what are your visions like?” Lincoln asks. “Can you describe them for me?”

In a snap, Clarke’s focus is back. “They’re like pictures in my head. Drawings and images flashing in my brain.”

“So they’re not moving images and sounds, like scenes from a movie?” he asks with a frown.

Clarke shakes her head. “No.”

“Do you get that creeping feeling before a vision? Like something’s crawling up your spine and spiking into your brain?”

“No. They just appear when I close my eyes.”

“Okay, so let’s assume that you’re a Pusher by birth, but something happened to you,” Monty says, scribbling on the board again. “And it gave you visions were accurate enough to find Octavia, Raven and me, but they’re different from Watcher visions.”

“If you’re having visions that are accurate, even though you’re not a Watcher, that’s enough for Division to want to bring you in alive,” Bellamy notes.

Monty caps the marker and takes a step back, surveying his work. The three bullet points stand out on the board.

“So we’ve got— one: a serum that boosts Psychic powers. Two: something that turns Normals into Pushers. And three: something that happened to Clarke that gave her visions.  All or none of which may be related to each other,” he sums up. “Now what?”

“We go to the source. We find my dad and that Wiper.” Clarke shoots a furtive look at Bellamy and the Commander. “They’re the only ones who can give us the answers to what’s happening to me and how they even got that serum. The good news is, I know where we can start.”

Clarke turns to Monty. “I am going to need your help again, Monty, but I’d like to ask if we can do this alone.”

“Why?”

“It’s my father’s watch.”

Understanding hits for everyone else around the room. A solemn hush falls on them, as Monty ushers Clarke into his study.

“I don’t understand,” she says to Raven with a puzzled look.

Raven frowns at the door of Monty’s study. “Clarke doesn’t know if her father’s alive or not. If I’m right, Monty’s about to tell her whether or not she’s lost a parent.”

Maya’s heart twists at the irony of her words. Now that Raven’s awake, Maya has the same difficult task ahead of her. She wishes Monty luck; she knows she’s going to need it.

She takes a seat next to Raven, reaching out a gentle hand.

There’s no more delaying it. It’s time.

*~*~*

Maya has been silent in front of her for too long, and it’s starting to wig Raven out.

Ever since Monty and Clarke disappeared into his study, she’s been struggling to tell Raven something, but she hasn’t actually said anything. Her hand’s grown sweaty and warm over Raven’s, and her face is pinched in consternation. Whatever she’s trying to confess, it’s clearly something upsetting, though what Raven can’t imagine— and really, she doesn’t want to imagine because reality is bad enough, what with the shit-show of craptastic proportions she calls her life. She really doesn’t want to speak evil into existence, but the suspense is killing her. 

“All right, spit it out.”

Maya freezes with such a deer in headlights look, it’d almost be comical if the situation weren’t so potentially terrifying. “Spit what out?” she asks, voice hitching.

“Whatever it is you’re scared of asking or saying.”

Maya bristles at the jab, snatching back her hand. “I’m not scared.”

“You have a terrible poker face, Maya,” Raven says flatly. “It’s doing that thing you did that time I called you and Jasper out about dating, and you tried to hide it. We both know how well that went. So whatever it is, just spill it already.”

Maya’s mouth opens, then closes. Her eyes drift to Nyko, who is still hovering at Raven’s side like a watchful hawk.  After another aborted attempt to speak, she finally settles on, “How are your legs, Raven? Are you really all right?”

Irritation mixes in with Raven’s fear. Deflection. Wonderful.

“I can’t feel or move anything below the waist, Maya. Of course I’m not fine,” she snaps, then regrets the action immediately.

It’s like kicking a puppy, the way Maya’s expression crumbles. Her head drops at Raven’s words, taking Raven’s heart with it because she knows Maya had hoped. They’d all hoped.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“It’s okay. It was a stupid question,” Maya mumbles with an embarrassed shake of her head.

“It isn’t,” Raven insists. “You and Nyko saved my life. Of course you’d want to know the details.”

She glances up at Nyko, silently begging him with her eyes to chime in. She needs him to explain, because she knows she can’t. He nods in understanding.

“We did the touch test on both legs with no response in either limb,” he starts, launching into a more detailed explanation of the Stitching results.

She’s grateful for Nyko’s presence. Raven knows if she had tried to speak, she wouldn’t have been able to hold it together long enough to find the words. _You’d think it’d be easier to talk about it having gone through this already once_ , she thinks, but no. It never gets easier to describe how dangerous hope is when it’s nothing but the smallest of things, nor the devastating crush when it withers away inside you and dies.

“So then there’s no hope?” Maya asks.

“As I said before, not without a surgically trained Stitch,” Nyko replies. “And they’d have to be very good, with all the resources of a full hospital to do it right.”

The exhausted Stitch exhales a weary sigh. Raven frowns at the way Nyko brushes his hand over his forehead. The man is bone tired. She knows it’s taken a lot out of him to heal her, and from what he told her of how he got here, he’s spent all night helping people in the riots while waiting for the Commander.  He’s done so much. He deserves to rest.

“Hey Nyko,” Raven interrupts, before they can go into full on analysis of Raven’s future options. “You’re dead on your feet. Maya and I can take it from here. Why don’t you take Monty’s room to sleep?” she offers.

“You’re sure?” he asks with reluctance, but Raven can see the way he’s eyeing the bedroom door.

“I’m good here,” she assures. “Go on.”

“All right. Wake me before they’re ready to leave,” he motions towards Anya and Lexa, engaged in quiet conversation in the corner. “I still need to see to Lincoln and your friend,” he adds.

They watch as he shuffles sleepily to Monty’s room, shutting the door with a solid thud. Maya turns back to Raven, the words spilling out easily this time.

“I’m so sorry this is happening,” she begins, as if it’s her fault, and Raven has to rush to cut her off.

“Hey, no. You did _everything_ you could,” she presses. Maya makes a noncommittal noise, but refuses to make eye contact with her no matter how hard Raven tries. “I’ll bounce back from this. I always do,” Raven adds.

Then with a bravado she doesn’t really feel, she reaches out for Maya’s hand. “Now are you going to tell me the bad news or you going to make us waste away here in limbo? After all, you didn’t come all this way just to save my life.”

Maya’s head shoots up at that. “How did you know it’s bad?”

A new fear burns a coil in Raven’s stomach at the confirmation, her shoulders tensing so hard she knows they’ll cramp.

“Don’t ever play poker with Octavia or Monty, okay?” she jokes.

Maya hesitates again, this time looking over her shoulder to glance around the room. The action, and the implied need for privacy in it, only makes the coil in Raven’s stomach burn hotter.

“Are you okay with hearing it here?” she asks pointedly, quirking a look at Octavia.

No one else is paying them attention. Anya and Lexa are too far away to hear. Bellamy and Lincoln are too busy glaring at each other to notice their tense conversation, but Octavia has always been attuned to Raven. As if sensing that Raven and Maya are talking about her, she inches closer in curiosity, well within hearing range. Raven refrains from rolling her eyes at how obvious Octavia’s stealth mode is when she can’t just disappear. 

“It’s all right. Saves me the trouble of telling her later,” Raven dismisses, loud enough to make Octavia’s body jolt. Octavia doesn’t even look ashamed at getting caught in the act.

Maya looks unconvinced, though, and continues to hold back her secrets. She drags her fingernail against the grain of wood of the table, averting her eyes from Raven’s face once more.

“Look, whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as almost dying,” Raven points out.

“I just don’t know how to say this without hurting you,” Maya admits softly, more to the dining table than to Raven.

Raven gulps back the lump in her throat. _So,_ really _bad news, then_.

And if it’s that bad, that means it has to be about Raven’s mother. If it was about Aurora Blake or something to do with Monty’s shell program in the communications grid, Maya wouldn’t have singled Raven out. Her mind can’t help but spin through the terrible possibilities of what it could be. Has she put Raven’s life in danger, finally decided to give her and Monty up? Does Division know where the Dropship is, or worse, has her mother Seen their plan and told Division about their attempt to break Aurora out? _What has her mother done to fuck up Raven’s life this time?_

Her patience on its last legs, Raven can’t help the frustration building inside of her. She digs her fingernails into her palm, and steels herself for the worst.

“You’re killing me, Maya. Quit stalling and just tell me already,” she pleads.

Maya pauses once more, and then:

“Your mother died. Two weeks ago.”

Raven exhales a shallow breath.

“Oh.”

After all that build up, the short sentences slam into her, stunning her like a physical blow. Not that it hurts; she just can’t relax, her body still rigid from anticipation of Maya saying…anything but that.

Perhaps uncertain what to make of her lack of reaction, Maya blurts out the rest quickly. “I don’t know all the details, but the story going around is that she fell and hit her head during a vision. Alcohol seems to have been a contributing factor. The doctors had to operate, but they couldn’t save her.”

“Oh,” she repeats, because she still doesn’t know how to act.

“Raven, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Maya says, filled with sympathy.

Raven hears her words distantly, as though there’s cotton in her ears and everything is so far away. Part of her wants to reassure Maya that it’s really okay; she wasn’t close to her mother at all. In fact, her more morbid side almost wants to laugh given the irony that alcohol was involved in her death. But her brain is still catching up with the reality of Maya’s news.

Her mother is dead.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Octavia coming towards her. She isn’t even pretending to keep her distance anymore, her body moving across the room on autopilot to be at Raven’s side. Lincoln and Bellamy follow in her wake. She kneels down, touching Raven’s shoulder.

“Raven,” she says gently. “Talk to us.”

Raven voices the only thought in her head. “Is it weird I was expecting something worse?”

Octavia’s concern blinks away, transforming into surprise. “What?”

“I was expecting Maya to tell me that she was actively doing something that would endanger our lives.”

Octavia and Lincoln exchange a glance. Maya crowds closer, squeezing her hand, and even Bellamy looks disturbed by her words.

She forces a dry, harsh laugh out of her chest.“Of course I see now how dumb that was. I don’t know why that was my first thought, given her track record. She’d actually have to care about me and acknowledge my existence first. I guess I just jumped to the worst case scenario.”

“Your mother’s death isn’t the worst case scenario?” Lincoln asks, brow knit in confusion.

Raven’s mouth twists into a mirthless half-smile. “Says a lot about Mommy Dearest, doesn’t it?”

“Raven,” Maya chides. “She was your mother.”

“Maybe in name, but not in practice.” Raven can’t even find it in herself to be angry anymore. She shrugs. “I had to find my own way, make my own family without her help. I got more parenting from dinners with Mr. Collins and my surgeries with Dr. Griffin than I ever did from her. My mother may be dead, but I was dead to her way before I met any of you. I made my peace with that a long time ago.”

The faces around her remain unconvinced.

“C’mon, guys. We have so many more important things to worry about: my legs, that Wiper, your parents. Things that actually matter,” she presses. “My mother isn’t even around to miss. I’m just glad it wasn’t worse. There’s nothing more she can do to hurt me.”

Maya opens her mouth to say something; exactly what, Raven doesn’t know, because there’s no denying that Mirai Reyes was a shit mother. She can’t think of a single thing Maya could say that would redeem her mother in her eyes.

Whatever it is, they never find out.

Because that’s about when the doors of Monty’s study slam open, and the shit hit really hits the fan.

Raven should have known. There’s always another shoe to drop.

*~*~*

Inside his study, Monty waits as Clarke hovers near the door, twisting the wrist with her father’s watch back and forth in the circle of her fingers.

“Are you ready?” he asks as gently as he can.

Clarke stops her fidgeting, stepping closer. “No,” she admits, ducking her head to her chin. “I’d be lying if I said I’m not scared. Can you just give me a moment?”

Monty leans back against his desk, picking up a rubix cube and mixing up the sides to make checkered patterns. The methodic motions are soothing, allowing his hands to do something while he waits and gives Clarke space.

He’s been where Clarke is, understands her hesitation. It’s the worst: hating the limbo of not knowing while at the same time dreading confirmation of your worst fears. The past has already happened and it’s impossible to change bad news into good, but unless you’re a Wiper, there is no unknowing a thing.

After some careful consideration, both for her feelings and his carpet, which Clarke is wearing thin with her pacing, Monty decides to say something.

“You know it’s not so bad,” he notes, still playing with the toy.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Clarke’s head rise at his words. “What is?”

“Being an orphan.”

He looks up at her as he says it, the blunt words having their desired effect as her pacing comes to a halt. His next words dying on his lips when he gets a good look at her. Monty recognizes the pain in her eyes. It resonates down to his bones with the familiarity of it, because he’s seen it in his mirror’s reflection every damn day.

“It hurts at first,” he recovers, shaking his head. “You lose that feeling of a safety net, the one you didn't realize was always there until it was gone, and it never comes back.” Monty drops the toy onto the desk and picks up the folding double frame next to it.

“But that doesn't mean that you can't still have a family,” he says, handing the frame to Clarke.

He observes her face as she runs her fingers over the glass. The frame holds two of his favorite pictures. The first is the only picture he has with Jasper, Finn and Raven, their faces filled with joy. The other is a self-taken photograph of Raven and Octavia kissing him on the cheeks as he makes a disgusted face. He doesn’t have a picture with his parents, but then again he doesn’t need one to remind himself of his family and their love.

No, these pictures Monty keeps in plain view on his desk as a reminder that he is a survivor, that he has had to rebuild his life twice now. If necessary, he can do it again. He can do anything with the right people by his side.

Clarke sighs, passing the frame back with a sad smile.

“It’s not just that…I just…” she stammers. Monty lets her find the words to express the mixed feelings in her head. “People die all the time. I know that. And all we get to hang onto are our thoughts and memories of them. But what if none of those memories are real? I already know some of them aren’t.”

Monty frowns, rubbing his chin. “You’re scared that the people you love aren’t really the way you remember.”

“I have a whole life in Mt. Weather that I don’t remember. My mom might be _alive_ ,” she says, her voice rising with every concern. “And I have all these powers that I don’t understand, and that freak me out a little bit, to be honest,” she adds.

Clarke rakes a hand through her hair. “I can Push people, without even thinking about it. I can’t tell you what that feels like, to have that kind of control over someone. And if Raven’s right, if my dad was a Pusher too, then that means he lied to me. What if he was the one who made me think I was a Watcher? Why would he do that? _How_ did he do that?”

“Maybe he did it for your own good,” he offers. “Or maybe you chose it. There are worse things to remember than life in that hellhole. If there were a way I could forget the bad and keep the good, believe me, I would take it.”

Monty can’t help the bitterness in his voice, and sure enough, when he looks at Clarke, he can see the gears working in her head. Her eyes drift to the picture frame again, but this time he knows she’s thinking about their first meeting, of him screaming Jasper’s name.

“If it hurts to See them in visions, why do you still do it?” she asks.

He knows what she’s doing: deflecting to focus on something else, but Monty entertains the question anyway.

“You wanna know a secret?” he asks, rounding his desk. “When I was little, my mom used to do this thing: every morning, she’d stand in front of the bathroom sink, wearing her glasses, and talk to herself into the mirror. I don’t think she realized I noticed. Once I overheard her talking about her day, so I figured, maybe she was giving herself pep talks, on how to get through the day.”

Clarke looks on curiously, moving closer to see as Monty pulls open the left drawer.  “I didn’t realize it until after she died that she was talking to me.”

He lifts his mother’s glasses and his father’s pen, holding them with careful, gloved fingers to show Clarke.

“This and my father’s pen were all I was allowed to keep; everything else was taken by Division when I became a ward of the State. But it was enough, because they left messages for me in Mom’s glasses. They told me how to find this place, who to trust, what to do when I got out in case they didn’t make it. It’s like they knew I’d still need them or something.”

They whispered secrets and advice too, life lessons on everything from on love and relationships to how to do the laundry and cook _bulgogi_ just right. Sometimes he just listens to hear his mother speak, the familiar lilt of her voice chasing away the ache in his heart.

“They’re still with me, guiding me even though they’re gone. And yeah, it hurts, but there’s so much I can learn from the past.”

Clarke examines the glasses in his hand with new-found wonder and, Monty notices, a touch of envy. “How do you not want to just live in the past?”

Monty chuckles at the question. “You mean like I am now?” he jokes, gesturing around the room.

Paraphernalia from history wallpapers every surface of the walls, filling shelves and tucked into every corner. Everywhere in his study, there are objects of the past, a functional time capsule of the First Age.

A sheepish grin finds its way on Clarke’s face. Monty’s glad to have lightened the mood.

“Nah, I get what you’re asking,” he reassures, placing the precious items back in their safe place in his desk. “And to answer your question: I do it by building something new from it. I run the Dropship to honor my parents’ gift to me. I run it to honor Finn and Jasper too, because we built our dreams together. This is their legacy.”

He fiddles with the knick-knacks on his desk, adjusting the little metal dragon Raven fashioned for him for his birthday.

“I know Raven thinks it’s her big idea to use movies as research for First Age theme nights. She thinks it will keep me busy, because she worries about me. But it’s actually something my parents and I did together. We were a family of Sniffs, and we used to bond over the inaccuracy of movies versus actual historical facts we’d See from artifacts.”

Monty moves to stand next to Clarke and and places his hands on her elbows, locking his eyes with hers.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from that, it’s that what we remember isn’t always what’s true. It's like Dad always said: the past helps make us who we are, but it doesn’t have to define us. We choose what kind of meaning to assign it, for better or for worse.”

Clarke’s eyes shine with unshed tears, her face heartbreaking and desperate in a way Monty wishes he didn’t understand because he’s been there too, too many times.

“And if nothing good about the past is real?” she asks, her voice breaking. “What happens if the only reality is something worse than you can possibly imagine?”

Monty wraps his arms around her and gives her the biggest hug he can. “Then we move past it to make something better together,” he whispers into her hair.

Clarke’s fingers grasp at his shoulders, squeezing back into the full-bodied hug. Her body shakes against him as she struggles to hold everything together. He wants to tell her it’s going to be okay; she’s going to live through it, and that even this shall pass. He wants to fill her with comforting reassurances, but he knows that that empty promises mean nothing. There’s only one thing that helps: to begin with the truth.  All Monty can do is promise to be next to her while she faces it.

“Are you ready now?” he mumbles against her shoulder.

Clarke nods, pulling away. She wipes discretely at her eyes while he pulls off his gloves, and she takes off her watch. Monty regards her with a steady, reassuring smile and holds out his hand.

The second the watch comes into contact with his skin, a flood of sounds flashes at him at a staggering pace. A cloud of fog obscures all the visions, confusing his Sight; a Shadow’s work, he realizes, and a damn good one too. For the first time, Monty can’t See in his Sniff-o-Vision. He’ll have to go by sound and smell alone. 

He screws his face up in concentration, closes his eyes, and begins to sort out the distinct sounds, parsing out individual events from the convoluted mess of the past—

_*SLAM*_

_“But Dad—”_

_“Clarke, no.”_

_“Why can’t we come with you? I am Watcher, I can help,” she protests._

Clarke thinks she’s a Watcher, Monty realizes. And her dad doesn’t correct her.

_“It’s too dangerous, Clarke,” he counters. “They’ll notice you right away because you two are too young.”_

Two? Who else is there with them?

_“What are you doing that is so important?” Clarke demands._

_“CLARKE. STOP.”_

Monty listens to the pause, hears Jake Griffin exhale a frustrated sigh.

_“I’m sorry. It’s just something I have to do, and I can’t explain it, but it’s vital to our survival. You understand?”_

_“We understand, Jake,” someone else reassures._

Monty recognizes that voice. It’s the one from the chess piece vision: the young man with the sad eyes, hugging Clarke like no tomorrow. So he _did_ know Clarke’s dad as Monty suspected.

_“Thank you, Wells, but I asked Clarke.”_

_“Fine,” Clarke grumbles._

_“Good. Listen to me very closely. I want you to hide this tube. Don’t tell Wells where; leave yourself breadcrumbs to find it, and Wells, you Wipe her memory of it so the Watchers don’t track you two.”_

Monty’s stomach flips. Wells is the Wiper. Clarke’s friend is the one who Wiped her on her father’s instructions. He wonders what happened, why she doesn’t remember the boy at all, if another Wiper got into the mix— but he dismisses the thought. Occam’s Razor, he reminds himself. The most obvious answer is the right one. There are so few Wipers left. Something must have gone wrong or he Wiped himself from her mind on purpose.

_“Wells, you still have the thing I gave you?” Jake asks._

_“Yeah,” Wells replies._

_“Good man. Hang on to that just in case.”_

_“In case of what?” Clarke asks, even more distraught and pissed than Monty’s ever heard her._

_“If I am not back in a week’s time, get the tube and go to Ark University Library. Look up SF CLA 1990. You’ll find the code in the margins on page 231. Remember that okay? Page 231. On the second floor, there’s a globe. It has a secret compartment at the bottom._ _Punch in the code and you’ll find packets for both of you: passports, money, phones, weapons. Everything you’ll need to be safe.”_

_“Jake,” Wells protests._

_“And then I want you to run. Whatever vision you get, Clarke, if it looks safe, you two go to it and you hide, understand?”_

_“Dad…” she pleads._

_“I’m doing this for you, Clarke. I’ll do everything in my power to be back here before you know it”—_

Jake’s voice disappears into the cacophony of sounds, lost in the watch’s latent Psychic imprints.

Monty lost the thread. _Damnit._

He grits his teeth and tries to zero in on the deep tenor of Jake’s voice again, searching for it amid the noise.

_—*THUD*_

The sound of a fist slamming on metal echoes in room.

_“It’s too much to ask of her, Abby,” Jake argues._

_“She’s already agreed to it.”_

That’s Dr. Griffin. Monty remembers the distinctive timbre of her voice. Raven once compared it to warm honey over gravel. Dr. Griffin has a voice that is textured and rich, perfect for a doctor soothing over scared patients.

But here she sounds strained, taut with stress. Clarke’s parents aren’t screaming at each other, not like Clarke yelled at her father, but the serious edge in their hushed tones scares Monty more somehow.

_“You’re pressuring her to make a decision she barely understands,” Jake presses again._

_“It is the only way that this will work,” Abby counters. “She and Wells take the serum, and together they’ll be powerful enough to Wipe and Push everyone in the mountain into believing you’re all dead so you can all escape. You’ve taught her how to control her powers since she was a child. With two Pushers and a Wiper, I know you will survive.”_

Monty’s heart sinks. So her father did lie to Clarke. He’s a Pusher like her, just like Raven said. The question is why they made her think that she was a Watcher.

_“And the rest?” Jake says, voice rising. “This plan puts too much on her.”_

Monty hears the clang of ceramic tipping on metal, and the smell of coffee fills the room. From the low curses being muttered and the rustle of paper, he bets someone just knocked over a cup of it onto the table.

_“Careful,” Abby warns. “Those are the only copies of my notes.”_

_“I know,” Jake replies testily._

Monty hears him exhale a sad sigh.

_“We can’t ask this of her, Abby. You can’t turn our seventeen year old daughter into a super soldier for the Resistance just because we decided to sign up for this before she was born.”_

_“What other alternative is there, Jake? Do you really want to throw away all the work we’ve done for the last twenty years? We’ll have wasted our lives, put our daughter in danger for nothing.”_

His head spins at Jake’s words, the new wrinkles further complicating the Gordian knot Monty’s trying to unravel.

 _Double agents._ Clarke’s parents were spies. They were living in the lion’s den for years, in Alpha station among the most pro-Division Psychics in existence, and all this time, they were working for the Resistance. On some level it makes sense, but it still blows his mind how they could have endured it.

What concerns him more, though, is the idea that they forced Clarke into it too. It’s bad enough they probably endangered their own child, but Dr. Griffin seems dead set on her daughter following her footsteps.

_“I’ll do it,” Jake volunteers.”Let me take on the rest.”_

_“You know that’s not possible. If you get Wiped of everything about the mission and something goes wrong on our end, the kids won’t know what to do.”_

_Jake’s voice softens. “You’re not going to die in here, Abby. I’m coming back to get you. And then we’re going to tear this place down brick by brick.”_

The faint perfumed scent of jasmine hits his nose. Dr. Griffin must be standing very close now to her husband. Feeling like he is intruding on an intimate moment, Monty squirms.

_“We both know we can’t take that chance,” she whispers._

_“You can’t put that kind of responsibility on her,” Jake begs, his conviction weakening. “WE can’t use her like that.”_

_“Do you remember what it was like before we started all this? How scared I was about coming forward and admitting that I was a Stitch?”_

_“Yeah, of course.”_

_“Do you remember what you said to me then?”_

_“Abby…”_

_“Whatever the cost, remember? We promised that we would do whatever it took to make sure our people survived. I need you to hang onto that.  Our work here with this serum and the kids is the key to ensure that everyone, including our daughter, gets a future.”_

_“Clarke never made that promise.”_

_“She’s our child, Jake. She didn’t have to. We raised her to do what’s right. She’s just like you.”_

_“But—“_

_“This is the only way. Clarke gets to live. The rest is up to her”—_

The statement rocks Monty to the core, causing him to lose his focus. The vision slips out of his fingers again, but Monty doesn’t want to stop Looking just yet.

He has to find out what and why they did this to Clarke. Maybe it’s because he can’t fathom the idea of his own parents doing this to him, but he needs to find out what circumstances could have led Clarke’s mother to turn her own child into a weapon. He has to give Clarke a reason, something she can hang onto.

_—*TSCHIKKKKKK*_

A match is lit, and the staining odor of a cigarette wafts through the air, competing with reeking smell of booze. Glass clinks and liquid pours out of a bottle, too little to be anything but a shot of alcohol. Monty hears the shift of movement and the thud of glass on wood. Someone exhales loudly and another one coughs, as if the first person blew the smoke into second one’s face.

_“I told you, Jakey,” a voice croaks out. “It’s not gonna work.”_

The slight slur and sandpapery rasp in the husky voice makes Monty’s hands clench into fists on instinct. He should have known it was Raven’s mother by the stench of the alcohol _._

_“Mirai, I’m not leaving my wife here in this base alone. You have to find another way to get us all out.”_

_“You don’t think I’ve tried? I have Seen a hundred different endings and it all comes out the same: Thelonious, Abby, Aurora, and I stay, or we all die.”_

Monty’s mind freezes, almost letting fragile threads of the vision go at the mention of the names. That Raven’s mother was a double agent for the Resistance along with the Griffins is enough of a double whammy, but they can’t possibly mean Aurora Blake. Not Bellamy and Octavia’s mother.

_“Clarke can’t live without her mother. Neither can Raven,” Jake adds._

_Mirai cackles a dismissive, sarcastic laugh. “_ Please. _That child doesn’t need me. I made sure of it. Why do you think I’ve kept my distance all these years and shoved her in direction of the Collins boy? To prepare her for this. I’ve always known I’d die here in this mountain.”_

He swallows at the callous way Raven’s mother talks. The part of him that hates her for the way she cast Raven away and neglected her daughter rebels against this new information. She orchestrated Raven’s place in his family? In order to prepare her for a life without a mother? It only makes sense in the most twisted of ways.

_“You can’t mean that.”_

_“We’ve all had to make difficult choices for the greater good, Jake.”_

Mirai takes another long drag of her cigarette.

_“Do you think it was easy for me to give up the location of that Resistance cell and watch all those people die or be captured to prevent you and Blake from getting caught?”_

_“Mirai…”_

_Her voice grows louder, harsher. “Do you know how hard it was to accept the deaths of our friends who gave their lives to protect our covers? Tamilyn Green was practically a sister to me. And I gave them up, for the mission. Their blood is on_ my _hands. I’ll never be able to wash them clean again.”_

Everything stops when Monty hears his mother name slipping off Mirai Reyes’ tongue.

He starts to hyperventilate, his chest constricting as the shock stuns him into a stupor. His mind tries to rotate around the mystery, see it from all the angles, but all he can hear is a loop in his head:

_Tamilyn Green was practically a sister to me. And I gave them up, for the mission._

All those times he saw his parents working on special projects, Sniffing at things he knew weren’t theirs. All the warnings they drilled into him to keep his head down and not attract attention, to take precautions and hide the depth of his talents. All the messages they left him in the pen and glasses, of whispered advice and messages of love for him to keep after they were dead and gone.

They knew.

They knew they might die, had drawn an invisible target on all their backs, and prepared for the eventuality of it their entire lives— and they kept it from him this whole time.

They _lied_ to him his entire life.

Monty always knew their deaths were suspicious; only he had believed Division had been the ones to start the fire that had burned down their lab. An “accident” arranged to get rid of dissenters, just like Jasper’s parents had died. He never dreamed his parents had any part in their deaths.

To find out now, after all these years, that his parents gave their lives up and left him alone in the world _by choice?_

It _hurts_ in a way he can’t describe. The betrayal, the secrets, and the lies shred his worldview apart. He feels like he’s hanging onto a kite string in a storm, flapping in the wind as the world as he knows it unspools.

Mirai let loose a violent cough, bringing his focus back to the vision. His mind wants to split off into a million different directions, chasing after his own memories of the past, but he grasps onto the strands of the vision and tugs on them harder. He needs to hold on a little bit longer. He needs to hear more.

_“We’re damned to hell, Jakey, but at least our daughters will have a chance to survive.”_

_“There has to be another way. There’s always hope.”_

_“For you. Your daughter will still have her father, and Wells will have you too. It’s the best we can do.”_

_“I won’t let you die here.”_

_“We’ve done too good a job in playing our parts. Positioned ourselves too high in Division’s ranks to slip by unnoticed. Don’t bother trying to stop it; I’ll meet my maker here within the year. That’s just the way it’s gotta be. Victory stands on the back of sacrifice. This is the price of survival.”—_

A strong shake causes Monty to tumble out of the vision. He gasps for air, his eyes snapping open, then screwing shut from the brightness.

“Breathe, Monty, breathe,” Clarke soothes.

Clarke’s worried face swims into focus, as he peeks his eyes open, taking stock of his surroundings. He’s on the floor, slumped against his desk again. Twice in one day. He really needs to learn how to sit down before doing these things.

“Are you okay? You almost stopped breathing there for a moment.”

Monty opens his mouth to speak, but panic and anger close it up.

His parents lied to him. _All_ their parents lied to them.

“What did you See?” Clarke asks with fearful eyes.

He wants to reassure her, but his mind is already spinning back up. The urgency to share revealed secrets bursts within him, but this involves all of them. He only has the resolve to explain this once.

Monty scrambles to his feet and staggers out of the room, Clarke following in his wake. The door slams open, drawing shocked looks from the small crowd gathered at the dining table. Monty ignores all of them and runs to the whiteboard, uncapping the marker in haste.

“Whoa, whoa, slow down there, Speedy Gonzales,” Octavia says, as he adds new bullets to the list, jotting down jagged letters in bold caps. His hands can’t stop shaking.

“I can’t. I have to get this out before I lose it,” he pants, looking over his shoulder as he writes. The Commander walks up to Clarke, still troubled by Monty’s erratic behavior.

“We’re all connected. Everyone. Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, me,” he rambles on.

Raven’s head snaps up at her name. Monty catches the mixed emotion on her face before it disappears, notices the way Maya keeps sneaking concerned looks her way. He realizes, with regret, that Maya must have told Raven about her mother. And he’s about drop another bomb on her. Monty shakes his head, hating Mirai Reyes just a little bit more.

He turns to face them, knowing that when he’s done, everything will shatter. Things will never be the same again, because there is no unknowing a thing.

“Our parents,” he announces. “They’re all secret spies for the Resistance.”

Anya scoffs. “Impossible. We would have known if we had insiders in the Mountain.”

All eyes turn to the Commander, confusion washing over Monty when she appears to be as in the dark as they are.

“Explain,” she demands.

And he does.

*~*~*

For a full minute, the room is silent enough to hear a pin drop. Whether it’s from shock or the fear to be the first one to speak, Octavia can’t tell, but the dizzying mix of emotions she sees on the various faces in the room must match her own.

It was shock enough when Maya told Raven about her mother’s death. Octavia still doesn’t know how to interpret her reaction.

At first, Raven was stiff, unreadable— even to Octavia— but then she dissembled like she always does, appearing to take things in stride when nothing could be further from the truth. Mirai Reyes has always had an invisible hold on Raven, whether Raven wants to admit it or not. The loss of her mother is affecting her. Octavia just doesn’t know how yet.

That uncertainty made her hold her tongue about her discovery of Lincoln’s connection to them, not wanting to add more complications to Raven’s life all at once.

But now that the truth is out— now that Monty’s announced that Raven’s mom is part of the Resistance, that Monty’s and Clarke’s parents and her own mother are a part of it, which is just _insane_ — a strange sort of excitement bubbles in her.

“This makes total sense now,” Octavia says, tapping Lincoln’s stomach eagerly.

Bellamy’s nose wrinkles in confusion, mirroring most of the occupants in the room. “What are you talking about, O?”

“Lincoln has met Raven’s mom before!”  

“Lincoln?” Anya questions, staring him down.

“Show them,” Octavia urges.

With a reluctance she doesn’t understand, Lincoln pulls out his sketchbook as everyone crowds around the dining table. He opens to the page of his drawing of Raven’s mother, turning it for everyone to see.

“Remember that time my mom asked your mom to find me after I ran away?” Octavia tells Raven. “Well, Lincoln met her beforehand in the butterfly field. He’s the one who had the vision and told her so she could find me! Don’t you see? If they were all working together undercover for the Resistance, that explains why Mom trusted someone who lived in Alpha to find me. It explains how your mom knew to listen to Lincoln!”

In her excitement, she doesn’t realize that Anya and Lincoln are staring at each other in a strange standoff until Anya’s voice cuts in, razor sharp like a blade.

“ _This_ is person you saw in the butterfly field?” she demands, her piercing eyes boring into Lincoln.

Lincoln’s shoulders tense, as if he was expecting this reaction. “Yes.”

“Why did you never tell me this?” The terse strain in her voice makes Octavia feel like she’s missing something, though she can’t imagine why Anya would be angry about this connection.

Lincoln tilts his head in confusion. “I thought you knew.”

Anya strides over and tries to pull him away, but Octavia steps between her and Lincoln, refusing to budge.

“No,” she says firmly, crossing her hands in front of her chest. “No more secrets. Why are you so pissed that he told Raven’s mom how to find me?”

Octavia expects Anya to fight, prepares herself for any comeback she might fire at her, but Anya doesn’t answer her. She doesn’t even acknowledge her presence. Instead her eyes are locked on Lincoln’s above Octavia’s head, staring at him as if Octavia isn’t even standing between them.

“How could you keep this from me?” she hisses again, and Octavia is shocked to hear the hurt in her voice.

“Keep what?” Lincoln shifts behind Octavia. She sees him cast a wary glance at the Commander. “I never kept anything from you,” he says to Anya. Lexa frowns in response. “You’ve seen that picture before.”

“I thought you drew her because this is the woman who helped us escape when you were reaped!”

More pieces fall into place, but Octavia still doesn’t understand what the big deal is. It’s a bit of a surprise that Anya had help, but it makes perfect sense that the person who predicted that Lincoln would have that vision of Clarke would have a vested interest in keeping him alive. Mirai Reyes was a powerful Watcher, and if she knew about Clarke’s special powers, she’d definitely try to help him escape to make sure the Resistance and Lexia found Clarke. She doesn’t know why that would make Anya upset.

Whatever misunderstanding Anya and Lincoln have just cleared up, though, it has both of them disturbed by the revelation.

“I don’t remember anything after I passed out,” Lincoln protests, shock coloring his face, a flush rising in his cheeks. “You’re telling me someone— that _she_ helped you?”

“Yes, and if I had known she was the same woman from the butterfly field, that woman who—” Anya’s words cut off, finishing off in a growl.

Octavia watches as her anger consumes her, her composure fracturing in front of them. Anya’s lean frame shakes, fists clenched so tightly Octavia’s afraid she might punch someone. Then, to her surprise, Anya starts to flicker in and out of sight, flashing like a strobe light. Octavia’s not even sure that she realizes what she’s doing.

“Victory stands on the back of sacrifice,” Lexa quotes. The weight in Lexa’s voice sends the room off balance, the gravity of her tone spinning the conversation into another direction.

She levels a look at Anya, silent and still, but it’s enough to stop Anya from disappearing and center her focus.

“Costia said you told her those words too, to help her move on from her parents’ death. Was that when you learned that lesson, Anya? Was it Mirai Reyes who taught you?”

Something passes over Lincoln’s face, his eyes widening as if he understands now what piece was missing from the puzzle. Octavia is dying to ask him to share with the class.

Caught in the middle of a triangle of loaded looks, she wishes they’d forget they have an audience and someone would just explain what is going on instead them speaking in cryptic, coded messages. The shifting dynamics between Lexa, Anya and Lincoln are impossible to track; the maelstrom of mixed emotions swirling in their faces passes over her head, beyond Octavia’s understanding.

Quite frankly, it’s starting to piss her off.  

Octavia wants to answers, wants to know what is going on with their relationship to Raven’s mom.

“So both of you met my mom?” Raven finally speaks, as if hearing her thoughts. Her voice is hesitant, almost meek, and not Raven-like at all. Octavia shoots Monty a worried look.

“I’m sorry, back up,” Bellamy cuts in. “I’m still hung up on all our parents working for the Resistance without anyone knowing, not even you, Commander.”

The turn in the conversation breaks the weird stand-off between the trio of Resistance fighters, as they address the other elephant in the room.

“Lexa, is it possible our parents are part a secret cell that only your older fighters know about?” Clarke inquires.

Lexa shoots an unreadable look at Anya, who remains silent.

“Clarke’s dad said they joined before Clarke was born,” Monty points out. “Maybe your generals?”

“No,” Lexa replies, turning back to Clarke. “That kind of intel is something the council would have shared by now. If anyone knew about your parents’ dealings, they’re long since dead and took the secret with them to the grave.”

The frank callousness in Lexa’s statement and the casual mention of death send Octavia’s heart racing, a spiking reminder of the dangerous stakes that those left living face.

Her mother is a double agent.

The timing of everything: her mother’s move to the Skybox, Raven’s mother’s death, all around the same time Clarke’s dad went on a secret mission? It’s all connected somehow. It has to be. Something must have happened that tipped their hand, something Division saw that cast suspicion on Octavia’s mother and ended in Mirai Reyes’ death.

“It doesn’t matter. We need to do something, now,” she blurts out. “If they really are conspirators, that puts a target on all their backs. We have to break them out.”

A ripple of agreement runs through her side of the table. Bellamy’s head bobs along with Clarke and Monty, and Raven’s eyes finally come alive with the fire and fight Octavia knows and loves. _Her best friend is still in there_ , she sighs in relief.

“Octavia is right,” Raven declares. “With what we know now from Maya about the experiments, getting Aurora Blake out should be our number one priority. The Griffins too, if they’re still in there,” she adds, glancing at Clarke.

“Cage has seen all of us together; it’s only a matter of time before they make the connection,” Clarke agrees.

“That does not concern us,” Anya dismisses, gripping the knife at her hip.

Bellamy crosses his arms in front of his chest, jaw set, and Octavia couldn’t be prouder of her big brother as he stares the Commander and Anya down.

“I thought you said this war involves all of us,” he challenges, shooting Anya a pointed look. “Or was that just a load of horseshit propaganda too?”

“They’re working against Division,” Clarke argues. “Doesn’t that make them one of you?”

Lexa raises her chin up high. “No. Conspirators against Division come from all corners, but that does not make them one of ours. We have no idea what their objectives were, if they are in line with ours.”

“Fine. We’ll do it ourselves,” Bellamy snaps.

“Bellamy,” Clarke says, placing a hand on his wrist. The almost gentle tone and the way her brother’s shoulders relax an infinitesimal inch in response grab Octavia’s attention. Bellamy only allows physical contact with certain people. _When did Clarke become someone Bellamy trusts?_ she wonders.

“We can't do it alone. Division is looking for all of us,” Clarke points out. “We need supplies, intel, and we still need a Watcher.”

“And you will have one,” Lincoln supplies without missing a beat.

He sends Octavia a small smile, and warmth spreads through her as her heart settles in the promise of his words. There’s still a part of her that is bothered by the fact that she and Lincoln aren’t on the same page. She worries that his connection to her is far deeper than hers is to him, or worse, that their connection isn’t real at all. She worries that he won’t be able to stop Watching her, despite his promise, because it’s in his nature to Look.

But she can’t deny the fact that right now, in this moment, Lincoln is here for _her_.

And so are Raven, Monty, Maya, and Clarke. Everyone she trusts is here to help Bellamy and her save their mother, and that’s all that matters.

Her relief is short-lived, however, when she sees the twinned hardness on Anya’s and the Commander’s faces.

“Absolutely not. Your place is at the Commander's side, not on a suicide mission for your new girlfriend,” Anya grits out with barely contained anger.

“Anya's right,” Lexa agrees. “I cannot afford to lose you, Lincoln. We have a war to fight.”

Lincoln looks imploringly between the two women. “Anya. Commander, please. Let me help them.”

“The answer is no,” Lexa repeats firmly.

Octavia doesn’t know what to do, what the rules are in the Resistance, but she’s pretty sure Lexa’s word is law. She bites the inside of her cheek to fight against the wave of despair washing over her, and tries to think. They’re so close to getting everything they need. All they need is something to offer in exchange, anything to make it worth their while. All she has to do is find it.

And then Clarke speaks.

“You want my help with the Resistance? It's yours if you let Lincoln help.”

Lexa’s eyes widen a fraction, and hope springs alive, crashing against Octavia’s ribs. Bellamy’s head snaps over to look at Clarke so fast, she thinks his head might spin off.

“Clarke, no,” he protests, but Clarke ignores him, eyes locked on Lexa.

“Lincoln and supplies for the mission and for Raven,” Clarke amends. “We come back alive, and then I’m all yours. Do we have a deal?”

Octavia holds her breath, eyes bouncing back and forth between Clarke and the Commander, trying to read the myriad expressions on their faces.

“Commander…” Anya says in a dissuading voice.

Lexa pauses, then gives a brisk nod to Clarke. “Very well.”

“No!” Bellamy shouts, crossing in front of Clarke to stand in front of Lexa. “You’re not going to force her to be the big gun in your war,” he growls, pushing his face into hers.

Lexa’s hand flies up to stop Anya and her knife, already unsheathed; then Octavia sees the grip of Lexa’s gun rise in the air. They’re not in the clear yet.

“Bell,” she warns.

He steps back, easing the tension down in the room, but he still turns to Clarke, voice insistent and firm. “You don’t have to do this. We can make a plan without a Watcher, just like you said.”

Octavia’s jaw drops, aghast at his words. She doesn’t understand why Bellamy is throwing away a perfectly good opportunity to better their chances to save their mother. They need all the help they can get, Pushers _and_ Watchers, and it’s a good trade. Even Clarke sees that.

“You know what kind of strings are attached to this, Clarke. You know what she’ll make you do,” Bellamy continues, his eyes searching hers.

Octavia sees Clarke’s resolve waver, and she jumps in to stop it. “She’s not making Clarke do anything. Right, Clarke?”

“Octavia, stay out of it,” Bellamy barks.

“Why should I? She’s a Pusher! _Nobody_ can make Clarke do what she doesn’t want to do!”

“You don’t know what they’re like,” Bellamy counters. “We don’t need _him_ and all the things that come with his kind of help.”

A surge of anger rises in Octavia at the disdain dripping in his tone and the implication of his words.

The Resistance isn’t the enemy.

They’re hard and unyielding, and she hates the fact that she has to beg, borrow and trade for any of their help, but they’re fighting a _war_. A war to preserve the rights for people like her, like all of them, to live in peace. And from what Lincoln has told her about them, what she’s seen tonight, she gets it. When times are bad, help comes at a price.

But that isn’t the thing that has Bellamy’s panties in a twist.

“You’re not pissed that they’re asking for something in return! You’re pissed off because Lincoln wants to help because of me!” she shouts back.

Lincoln shifts uncomfortably behind her. “Octavia, maybe this isn’t—”

“NO,” she cuts him off with a hand and wheels back to glare at Bellamy. “Lincoln’s the reason Nyko’s here and Raven’s alive. Lincoln’s the one who saved all of us from being shot by drones. And he didn’t ask for anything in return, so if you have a problem with him, you have a problem with me.”

“He’s no good for you, O!”

She throws her hands up in air. She’s so sick and tired of people in her life telling her what she can and cannot do. “That’s not for you to decide. You keep doing this. You keep treating me like a child. This is just like what happened with Jasper and Finn.”

Maya gasps at the mention. Octavia winces at the sound, at the hurt washing over Monty’s and Raven’s faces.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes to them, because she doesn’t mean to hurt them. “But it’s true,” she tells Bellamy.

Her anger breaks, splintering into something else as her words voice out the heart of the matter. All fight drains out of her, exhaustion slamming into her because she’s so fucking _tired._ She’s tired of having the same damn fight over and over again, so tired being so angry at him all the time.

“You need to stop, Bell. We’re all on the same side. Even Mom was fighting for their cause.” Her vision blurs with unshed tears, but she’s never seen so clearly what she wants to do. Octavia takes a deep breath. “And I am too. Lexa, if you can spare more people to help our parents, I’m signing up too.”

“The hell you are!” Bellamy yells, rearing up again.

“All right, enough!” Clarke shouts, silencing them with a wave of her hand. “Nothing concerning Octavia has to be decided now. The original agreement hasn’t changed, right, Commander?”

“Your promise to the cause is commitment enough,” Lexa says, impassive and even. “You will have your supplies and Lincoln’s aid.”

“Thank you.” Clarke pulls at Bellamy’s elbow and meets his stormy gaze. “Bellamy, it’s my decision. And it’s worth it if it gets our parents out, okay? We have other things and other _people_ we have to worry about, or everything is moot.”

Bellamy looks like he wants to say something again, but a pointed look passes over from Clarke to him, and he relents. Octavia questions it, but Clarke continues to take charge. She turns to address everyone at the table.

“We need to find that Wiper. This Wells person is the key to finding out more about the serum and what happened to my dad. Chances are, he’ll also have intel on what’s going on in Mt. Weather, so that’s the priority. Wells and my dad.”

“We should start in the library. I’ll go with whoever’s going,” Monty volunteers. Octavia swivels her head in his direction. He offers her a small smile. “I’m the only one who knows what he looks like.”

Clarke nods in agreement. “When the curfew lifts in the morning, there’ll be more people for cover. Monty, see if you can find that globe that Dad was talking about in your visions. Maybe you can pick up on something else while you are there that can help us find him and the Wiper.”

“I’ll go with him in case there’s trouble,” Bellamy says gruffly.

“If it’s fine with Lexa, Lincoln should go with you to make sure you’re both covered.”

Bellamy and Lincoln eye each other warily, but no one objects to Clarke’s plan.  Lexa merely nods.

“Okay. In the meantime, Lexa, Anya, and Nyko will return to TonDC to get the supplies for Raven’s leg and some firepower. The rest of us will stay here, out of sight. We regroup here tomorrow at 5pm.”

If Lexa has a problem with taking orders from Clarke, she doesn’t show it. Octavia can feel Anya still glowering to the side, but even she says nothing, apparently taking her cue from her Commander. It’s enough to make Octavia wonders if Clarke is Pushing all of them in compliance, but if there was any black in her eyes, she missed it.

Clarke runs a graceless hand through her hair, exhaling a long, tired sigh. “It’s been a long night. The sun rises in a couple hours. For now, I suggest we all get some sleep.”

She steps away from the table, effectively ending the conversation, but the tension from unresolved issues still buzzes in the room. It keeps them in place for a beat; then, Monty turns with a sigh to survey the apartment, sparking a discussion with Raven over the sleeping arrangements for the night.

Going by the number of conflicted faces around her, there’s no way any of them are going to get a decent rest tonight. A cloud of unease still hovers over Monty and Raven as they begin to direct Moving furniture and search for pillows and blankets. Anya remains brooding in her corner, glaring daggers at Clarke, and Bellamy won’t stop shooting angry looks in all sorts of directions: Lincoln’s, Lexa’s, Anya’s, hers.

Octavia herself is way too emotionally fucked to consider sleeping right now. There’s just too much to process. Too many revelations of the past and too many uncertainties of what is going to come.  

But Clarke is right. They do have to try.

As long as tonight has been, she has the sinking premonition that tomorrow's going to be even longer.

 

END ACT III 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Taking a week off for some personal stuff. Should be back online with the new chapter in 2 weeks time. Hope you enjoyed the end of this act!


	10. Act IV: To Build a Home (1/4)

 

 

Raven sits in a lamp-lit corner of the balcony, the cool brick pressing patterns on her back through the fabric of her shirt. The inky black sky starts to tinge with midnight blue on the horizon. It’s that 5am quiet, the kind that makes her poetic and shit, because she always romanticizes it in her head and never realizes how cold it can get until her body’s a fucking popsicle. She should have brought a cup of Monty’s hot chocolate to warm her up, but if she’s honest, the numbness helps.

Her fingers are stiff from the cold as she sketches on her pad. It’s a frivolous exercise; the design she’s sketching can’t possibly be brought to reality without expensive equipment and supplies. Definitely not the kind Lincoln’s friend can provide. But it relaxes her. Soothes her. Calms all the turmoil churning in her head.

Raven is no stranger to loss. Life is unfair. It has always been unfair, but she has always been someone who can handle that. Yet none of that could have prepared her for the barrage of truths that flipped the script on her a few hours ago. Her brain has been running on overdrive since she woke up and new realities keep chasing sleep away— ironic, since she can’t even stand.

So she’s doing what she always does in these situations: she embraces her pain and lets it fuel her. She relishes in it, until she can recognize it like an old friend and transform it into something better— something productive. And since she can’t do anything about her dead mother…

With smooth black strokes, she outlines the details for a fully bionic sheath for her leg. She draws intricate gears and adds thick lines of supporting metal to make her stance stronger and sturdier. The black charcoal breaks against the paper, leaving streaks near the heel of her design. On a whim, she starts sketching nonsensical things from it. The feathered wings on the heel look out of place on the mechanical design, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

“Raven?” Octavia calls from the doorway. “What are you doing in the corner? You’re supposed to be resting.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she murmurs, still focused on her drawing.

Octavia yawns. “How did you get out here?”

Without looking up, Raven points to the crutches leaning up against the wall. She hasn’t used them since she first got hurt, before she and Monty could scrounge together for enough money to pay off a Stitch to fix her leg well enough to walk.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Octavia slide down against the wall next to her. A soft blanket flutters down and drapes over her shoulder, startling Raven with its sudden warmth. Octavia huddles closer under the shared blanket and looks down at her sketchpad, ignoring Raven’s stare.

“So, whatcha doing?”

It’s obvious what she’s drawing. Raven recognizes her game: they’ve danced this dance before, skirting around the elephant in the room until there’s nothing left to do but confront it. If anyone else tried it, she’d tell them to fuck off, but it’s Octavia. She’s just as stubborn as Raven is. It’s useless to do anything but play along.

“Designing a new brace,” she replies.

“Just one?” Octavia points out lightly.

Raven didn’t think about that. It dawns on her that she should have drawn two legs. Her sketch has betrayed her hope — or denial; Raven can’t decide which would be worse.

“For now,” she settles on. 

“Since when are wings practical?” Octavia asks, craning her head for a better look.

“They’re not. It’s not a real design.”

Octavia frowns. “Looks real to me. The wings aside.”

“It’s my ‘when pigs fly’ design,” she jokes. “We’re never gonna get the kind of material to do this, but a girl can dream.”

Octavia hums in reply. “Then you should add armor on there to stop you from getting shot,” she suggests after a beat.

“It would weigh a ton,” Raven replies, but doodles metal plates anyway. It’s not like she would feel it.  She taps her pencil against her cheek and notes the need for agility, sketching a system of gears into the joints to help the knee bend and a power source to reduce the strain. She doesn’t notice that she’s crying until the droplets splash on the page, smudging the lines.

“Raven,” Octavia says with such softness Raven wants to scream.

“I’m fine,” she sniffs.

“ _That’s_ a lie.”

“No, really, I’m okay.”

Octavia’s laugh is as empty as she feels. “Bull _shit_. The last time you said that after someone died, we ended up drunk and hungover for the next two days. And the last time you said that when it was about your leg, we wound up naked in bed together,” she says. “So should I get the bottle, or kick Maya and Clarke out of your room?”

The joke falls flat, because now isn’t the time to remind Raven of their ex-almost relationship, and yet another time that someone in her life has failed to put Raven first.

(Not that she gave Octavia the opportunity to make that choice. She just knew. Octavia would have tried to make it work, but she would have been torn between Raven and Bellamy, the most important person in her life. And Raven would have lost her in the end. She knows the power that person can have, when they’re the first person to love you as the rest of the world barely acknowledges your presence. She and Octavia are too similar in that sense, and she didn’t want to— couldn’t bring herself to make Octavia make that choice. So she ended it before it was too late.)

“C’mon. Dok-tor Blake eez he-reh. Vhy don’t you just tell me vaaaaat eez on your mind?”

Octavia purses her lips and furrows her brow in such a cartoonish imitation of Freud that Raven has to laugh. The sound of her watery chuckle carries out, fading into the cold night air. Octavia grins, snuggling close, and this feeling, right here, is why Raven cut their friends-with-benefits relationship off. She needed this friendship more.

“I love you, you fucking weirdo,” she answers, wiping at her eyes.

“That’s because I’m awesome,” Octavia drawls, dropping the purposefully terrible German accent. “So. Which is it? The leg or the Mommy issues?”

Raven sighs. “Right now? Definitely the Mommy issues winning out.”

“How are you feeling about it?” she asks, serious this time.

“I don’t even know what I’m feeling,” Raven replies. “My life’s been one shitshow after another. I feel like I should be used to it by now. I should know how to deal with it. But this is just…some next level shit.”

Her mother is gone. It’s hitting her now, like it didn’t before. She’s dead and gone, and in the wake of her death, Raven’s discovered someone she never knew existed. Someone she could have been proud to call her mother. Mirai Reyes wasn’t a traitor at all. She was a hero. A brave, self-sacrificing, dead hero.

Raven doesn’t know how to heal this hurt, how to mourn the loss of something she didn’t even know was hers to lose until it was already gone.

Octavia sits at her side, lacing her fingers with Raven’s. The sky is quiet around them. All Raven can hear are the soft inhalations and exhalations of breath they take in the tranquil twilight of morning.

“Tell me something to distract me from thinking about this,” she asks, barely above a whisper.

Octavia casts a reluctant glance at her.

“Please?”

Octavia’s mouth quirks to the side, as she evaluates Raven with a hard look. After a beat longer, she speaks.

“Lincoln and I had sex.”

Raven blurts out a laugh, which only gets louder when Octavia makes a face at her response. She has to hand it to Octavia. When Raven asks something of her, she always delivers.

“What is so funny about that?” she demands.

“I can’t believe you got Monty twice with that,” Raven says between chuckles.

Octavia’s eyes widen in realization. “I’m going to kill Monty,” she mutters through gritted teeth. “Him and his big mouth.”

Raven pats her on the arm lightly. “Relax. He only gave it up because I kept badgering him about why he didn’t want to sleep in his own room for the sleeping arrangements.”

She can’t help another snort of laughter that escapes her lips when she recalls Monty’s face as he described what happened.

“I’m never hearing the end of this, am I?” Octavia says with a huff.

“Nope,” she replies with a wide grin. “I can’t decide if he was more traumatized by you and Lincoln in his bed or that time with you and me on the couch.”

“Oh, totally you and me on the couch,” Octavia says flippantly.

“Was sex with Watcher boy that boring?” she teases.

“ _No_ ,” Octavia emphasizes. “I’m saying Monty wigged out more about us because we’re practically his sisters. Two of us going at it is more traumatizing to him than just one.”

“True.”

“And for the record, sex with Lincoln was great. Fantastic, actually.”

An odd feeling twists in her heart at Octavia’s declaration, but for the most part, a warm feeling of gladness for her spreads in Raven’s chest. At least one of them is happy.

“I almost wish it was less fantastic, because then it’d be easier to walk away.”

Confusion washes over Raven when the words register. “Wait, what?”

Octavia leans back against the brick wall with a sigh. “So it turns out that Lincoln has been Seeing me for years in visions. As in, not just random visions. He was actively Scrying for visions of me before we even met.”

All amusement falls off Raven’s face. “Yikes.”

“Yeah. And I’m pretty sure he’s halfway in love with a me that doesn’t exist yet.”

“He’s Seen that far?” Octavia nods her head. Raven frowns. “So what exactly is bothering you more: the fact that he was creeping on you or the future you thing?”

“I have to pick? They’re both pretty terrible.”

“Yeah,” Raven agrees.

“I guess, if I had to pick what bugs me less…At least there’s a solution to the future me thing,” she admits. “Don’t get me wrong; the idea of living up to someone else’s idea of who I should be is still driving me batshit crazy. The fact that I have to compete with _myself_ for Lincoln’s attention is like something out of terrible sci-fi movie.”

Raven snickers. “You’re in a love triangle with yourself.”

“Thanks for the sympathy,” she grumbles, knocking shoulders with Raven, hard. “Whatever. The point is, it sucks, and I’m dealing with it. But…”

Raven raises an eyebrow. “There’s a but? Is his that cute? Are his abs and the orgasms so distracting that you forget about how much it bothers you?”

“Shut up,” Octavia says, laughing. “I mean, _it doesn’t hurt._ ”

Raven’s lips curve up into a smirk. “I bet.”

Octavia pinches at her ribs playfully. “I’m trying to be serious here. Stop trying to make me feel better and listen.”

Raven settles back, her smile melting into real concern when she takes in the nervous way Octavia’s fingers fidget with the edge of the blanket. “What is it, O?”

“Would it be dumb if a tiny part of me is relieved to know that I’m going to grow up to even more badass than I am now?” she asks.

“Is future you more humble?”

Octavia rolls her eyes. “This coming from the girl who repeatedly says, and I quote, ‘It’s hard to be humble when you’re the best’?”

Raven has to concede her point.

“It’s not insane to think it might be true though, right? That I might become a hero?” she asks, with a hint of doubt in her voice.

Raven snuggles closer into her side. “Of course not. You’re already one, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Lincoln said Watchers don’t get everything they See in their visions. Is that true?”

“Yeah. That was the excuse Mom used to keep on drinking. To get a better picture,” she quotes. She tries to keep the resentment out of her voice, because this is about Lincoln and Octavia not her and her mom.

“So eventually he’ll know the real me better than what he Saw,” Octavia concludes. “All we need is time for him to grow out of it. Or I don’t know. Worst case, if we ever find that Wiper, there’s always the option of erasing the memory of those visions. If Lincoln would be willing to, of course.”

“You really think he’d do that for you?”

Octavia shrugs. “We haven’t really talked about it yet. I don’t even know if I would ask. But it’s an option.”

“Okay. So if you have a solution to your problem, then why do you still want to walk away?” Raven prompts. “I’m assuming you told him not to Scry for you anymore.”

“Yeah.” Octavia flicks some lint off her pants. “We drew some boundaries so he won’t go Watching without permission again.”

“But?”

“It’s not like I don’t trust him. Lincoln’s one of the most trustworthy people I’ve ever met. But he didn’t even think about how I might be affected by his Watching. It didn’t even occur to him until I brought it up.”

Octavia runs a hand through her hair. “What if he can’t help himself? Our powers are part of who we are. They’re second nature to us. Asking him to not to use them would be like…asking me to stop loving you and Monty. Or bickering with Bellamy. Or breathing.”

“Yeah, but I make things,” Raven point out. “You disappear or hide people from clairvoyant visions. It’s defensive. It’s not the same as Watching. Scrying is…invasive. It’s a choice to cross that line instead of just letting the visions come to you.”

The memories of all of her mother’s Scrying sessions and drunken episodes flash in her head. She can still picture her mother sitting there in that corner of their apartment, hunched over her sketchbook with a pencil in one hand and a bottle in the other, obsessively Scrying and oblivious to anything Raven said or did.

“You’re actually doing him a favor by telling him to stop. It can turn into an addiction,” she says with a rueful shake of her head. “Trust me. I had a front row seat to it.”  

“How did you deal with it?”

Raven takes a moment to admire how well Octavia has gotten her to start thinking about her mother again and maneuvered her back into this corner. She didn’t see it coming, and the way Octavia framed it, she can’t not answer the question. Not when Octavia is asking for real advice on something that could make her happy.

“Rae,” she asks again, this time turning on the puppy dog eyes.

Raven sighs. “I didn’t deal with it. My mother didn’t give me a chance. She just pushed me away.” Octavia’s face falls, soft with so much concern, she has to look away. “But not all Watchers are like that. Lincoln isn’t my mom. You just have to ask yourself if he is someone you can trust.”

“I know,” she backs off, as if sensing that she’s pushed too hard. Raven feels the tension in her chest relax as she continues to talk about Lincoln. “I just don’t know if it’s too much to ask. If someone told me to stop using my powers, I don’t know if I’d be able to help myself either.”

The sound of the glass door sliding open catches their attention, bringing the conversation to an abrupt end. Raven cranes her neck to see who it is, and to her surprise, Clarke steps out of the shadows. She pays Raven and Octavia no attention as she leans against the balcony’s stone ledge, lost in her own thoughts. Raven’s pretty sure she doesn’t even realize they’re there.

“Needed some fresh air too?” she quips.

Clarke jumps at the sound, whipping around with her hand over her heart. “God, you scared the crap out of me. I didn’t even see you there.”

Raven smirks. “Octavia’s the invisible one, not me.” She nudges Octavia’s head off her shoulder.

“Shouldn’t you be resting?” Clarke asks. Octavia snickers in response.

“Is everyone going to ask me that?” Raven grumbles.

Clarke looks at her and Octavia, her calculating expression still sharp as ever in the early hours of the day. Her face shifts, and she starts to excuse herself, as if realizing that she’s stumbled on something important. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

But there’s something familiar and desperate in her eyes that makes Raven call out. “No, stay. It’s fine.”

Clarke hesitates, then takes a seat on the stone bench. The silence feels different, heavier with Clarke’s presence. Almost as if whatever reasons drove Clarke outside have added to the demons Raven is struggling with, making the balcony wrought with unspoken anger simmering at the surface.

“So, what are we talking about?” Clarke asks, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“Shitty moms and how much life sucks,” Raven replies.

Clarke laughs mirthlessly. “I hear that.”

Raven’s face scrunches in confusion. “What do you mean? Your mom is awesome.” A fond memory tugs a smile onto her face. “She used to call me little bird when I got scared as a kid. I used to see her all the time.”

“Were you sick a lot?” Clarke asks.

“I had a heart murmur. When I was ten, I had to get it Stitched. I remember being so scared because it was so complicated, they needed to actually do a surgery first to see the damage and then Stitch it.”

Raven leaves out the part where her mother didn’t even show up. Her mom wasn’t lucid enough. Dr. Griffin had to pick her up and bring her to the medical bay herself instead.

“Your mom held my hand the entire time until the anesthesia kicked in, and she kept me calm by talking about you. I’ve never seen someone so proud of her daughter.”

“Really?” Clarke’s voice piques with a tentative curiosity Raven doesn’t understand.

“You really don’t know?” she asks, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

Raven watches as Clarke fiddles with the hem of her pants. Raven’s pants, she realizes. Octavia must have found them and lent them to Clarke to sleep. It takes a while to place the over-sized shirt she wears, until she remembers it from the locker: Clarke’s wearing her dad’s shirt. Raven wonders how many borrowed clothes Clarke has worn in the last two days.

Clarke exhales a weary sigh. “The mom I remember was a surgeon, not a Stitch. She was kind and warm, and I held her hand when she died.” She folds her arms over her knees and rests her chin on top. “But none of that’s true. None of the memories I have are real.”

Octavia and Raven exchange a look, recognizing the quaver in Clarke’s voice. The Lost Boy voice, Monty calls it. That ache that comes when you realize that you have no more home, no more parents to take care of you, and all you have to rely on are people who are just as lost as you.

“Do you remember anything else about Dr. Griffin?” Octavia whispers. “’Cause I don’t.”

Raven clears her throat. “Your mom used to talk about you all the time.” Clarke’s head shoots up at her words. “I never saw pictures of you as a kid when I had my check-ups; you know how photos aren’t allowed in the base. But man, the stories she used to tell.”

Clarke’s face transforms, and Raven can see the hunger in her eyes, despite the way she’s trying to keep cool.

“You were a menace,” she continues. “Do you remember the time you drew all over the walls of her office?”

The blue in Clarke’s eyes shine as her eyes brighten under the lamp-light glow. “I do.”

“That actually happened. The Division agents wiped down most of the drawings, but she managed to keep one or two that I saw. I saw a couple drawings once, hidden on the wall under her desk. They were pretty decent for a five year old.”

Clarke tilts her head with a fond smile, nostalgia softening her eyes and erasing the angry furrows on her brow. “I’d used charcoal on the walls. Mom caught me in the act, and when she asked me why I did it, I was still learning new words. I didn’t know how to explain it properly, so I just said—“

“My brain told me to,” Raven finishes in unison with her.

Clarke chuckles. “I remember her face turned bright red. I thought she was so mad. Turns out she was holding it in, trying too hard not to laugh.”

There’s wonder back in her voice, and that longing and affection she had when Clarke spoke about her father the other day. A pang of jealousy mixes in with the satisfaction spreading in Raven’s chest at the fact that she’s been able to fix something by giving something back.

“So there are some real memories in there,” Raven says.

Just as quickly as it brightened, however, Clarke’s face darkens again. “This is so frustrating. I feel like I can’t trust my own mind, and worse, I don’t know why they’d do that to me, even if I did agree to it.”

“You heard Monty. Maybe it was the only way to get out.” Raven shrugs. “At least you know they loved you.”

“Yeah, great.”

“I’m serious. Not all of us got parents that loved them.”

“Or it could be worse. Your mother could have loved you so much, she forced you to leave, even though the only time you’ve ever felt safe was when you were all together,” Octavia grits out, staring at her feet.

A stab of guilt hits Raven, as she is reminded that Octavia is in the exact opposite situation from her: a loving mother caught in the prison of Mt. Weather. It’s the one worry she has that Raven never will.

“Octavia…”

“I’m sorry,” she dissembles. “I’m making this about me.”

“It’s okay. We’re all in a shitty position right now,” Raven replies.

“Yeah.” Octavia exhales, blowing a hair out of her face. “It just sucks so much. I’m scared for her. With all this Resistance stuff…” she trails off. “At least now I know why my dad high-tailed and ran before I was born.”

Clarke tilts her head in confusion. “I thought Bellamy said your dad died?”

“ _His_ dad did. He was killed trying to protect Bellamy and Mom from some burglars, back when they were living outside Mt. Weather. _My_ dad found out Mom was having me, threw some money at her for an abortion and never looked back.”

Raven frowns at the revelation. Octavia never shared this with her before. It doesn’t bother her that she never said anything; Octavia is entitled to her own secrets. But she wishes Octavia had told her. It explains so much about the Blake siblings’ dynamic that she never understood before. Knowing that he lost a father in such a violent way and that Octavia almost wasn’t born, Bellamy’s obsessive need to protect his sister almost makes sense now.

It doesn’t excuse what he did; Raven can never forgive him for that, but she can’t imagine a world without Octavia either. Her heart clenches at the mere thought. She inches closer to Octavia, needing her close to ground herself in this reality. To chase away the fact that Raven almost lost her best friend before she even had her. An overwhelming need to keep Octavia safe washes over her, and in that moment, she understands why Bellamy is the way he is, what he feels every day.

Sensing the shift in Raven’s thoughts, Octavia leans her head against Raven’s shoulder as she continues to speak.

“I always figured that Mom never talked about why he left because he hurt her so much. Now I wonder if maybe he found out about the Resistance stuff and didn’t want a part of it. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”

A quiet anger builds in Raven at her words. _Guess she’s not the only one re-evaluating her life because of this shit._

“My father didn’t want me, and the parent that did is a sitting duck if they find out the truth,” Octavia finishes softly.

Clarke stands and comes by to sit on Octavia’s other side. “We’re going to get her back, Octavia,” she says, gently but firm as she lays a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I promise.”

“What if we don’t?”

“We will.”

“I just feel like everything’s changing so fast. What if we can’t keep up? What if Mom dies? What if I lose Bell?” Octavia turns her head to look at Raven. “I swear, my heart stopped when I thought we lost you.”

Raven reaches out to hold Octavia’s hand again. “Well you didn’t. I’m here. And even if you lose Bellamy and your mom, you still have me and Monty. This is your home too.”

“And you have Lincoln,” Clarke adds with a smile. “He cares a lot about you too.” Raven feels Octavia stiffen next her as Clarke continues to hit at a sore spot unknowingly. “Anyone with eyes can see how much he likes you.”

“Like you're one to talk,” Octavia fires back before Raven can step in and do damage control.

Clarke’s face scrunches. “What does that mean?”

Raven spins the conversation around on Clarke, giving Octavia space to breathe. “She means you and Commander Hotpants are almost as bad as Lincoln and Octavia the way you keep staring at each other all the time. I didn’t think she’d cave so easily, but then you were all, ‘let Lincoln help us and I’m yours!’”

Raven bats her eyes in an exaggerated motion and adopts a breathy falsetto as she says the last bit, earning a roll of Clarke’s eyes.

“Seriously,” she adds, in her regular voice, “between Watcher boy and the Commander, I’m kinda getting annoyed that I’m the only one not getting Resistance booty around here.”

“Actually, I was referring to Bellamy,” Octavia says, turning the conversation with a little more bite than expected. Clarke raises an eyebrow at her glare. “Mind telling what’s going on between you and my brother? Last I checked, Bellamy was pretty pissed off at you and didn’t trust you as far as he could throw you. And now he’s starting fights with me about you joining the Resistance.”

“Your brother’s just overly concerned,” Clarke dismisses. “We’re friends now.”

Octavia shakes her head. “Bellamy doesn’t do friends. He does family and people he doesn’t want to punch.”

“Well, he does now.”

“And how’d you manage that?” Raven hears the fear in Octavia’s question.

Clarke tilts her chin up and pins Octavia with a look. “I didn’t Push him if that’s what you’re worried about. We just found what we have in common.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

Clarke’s voice softens. “You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. We both promised you that we’d get your mother out.”

Clarke looks at Octavia with clear, blue eyes shining. “You were the first people to help me, you and Lincoln. Back at Grounders, you saved my life. You didn’t have to, and I’ll always be grateful for that. I want to pay back the favor. All I had to do was explain that to Bellamy, and he got it.”

Raven knocks her shoulder against Octavia’s with a gentle nudge. “See, O. You have all of us. You always have. Don’t question everything you know just because our parents lied to us.”

Clarke turns to address her next. “And for the record, Raven, there is nothing going on between me and Lexa either. She only wants me because she thinks I can win her war.”

Raven clicks her tongue at the denial in Clarke’s voice. “I dunno. You’re sure it’s just that?”

“Yes, because she told me so herself. ‘Emotions are the enemy, Clarke,’” she says, in a halfway decent mimic of the Commander. “Lexa isn’t interested in letting anyone close to her again.”

 A shade of melancholy mixes in with the finality of Clarke’s tone, like there’s a tragedy buried inside her words. Raven can’t help but pick up on it, whistling low.

“Well, damn. Never mind. You two can keep your Resistance booty. That’s way too much drama for me,” she jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

Clarke and Octavia both let loose tiny laughs, small smiles creeping back onto their faces. _Mission accomplished._

“Okay, forget about what Lexa thinks for a moment,” Raven goes on, unable to let her curiosity go. “Do _you_ like her?”

“It’s complicated.”

Raven smirks. “It’s a yes or no question.”

“Not when she’s both Lexa and the Commander.”

“You say that like she’s two different people.”

“She kinda is. If we were just talking about Lexa, it’d be one thing, but she’s leading a war. And some of the decisions she makes, if the people you care about aren’t on the right side of it...”

Clarke shrugs, but something in the way her shoulders never fully loosen gives Raven pause and all levity falls away. She doesn’t quite know what sore spot she’s stumbled upon. It has to be more than just Clarke having to step in so they can save their parents. It’s something else. Some lingering, unresolved issue that Clarke knows but isn’t saying. What that might be, Raven can’t tell, but she can feel the conflict inside Clarke, eating away at her.

“It’d be hard to be in a relationship and not resent it if I constantly had to choose between them. No matter how much I liked them,” Clarke finishes.

“Yeah,” Raven echoes, her eyes flicking over to Octavia for a brief second.

“Thank you, by the way,” Octavia tells Clarke. “For what you did.”

Clarke offers a wane grin. “Like I told Bellamy— if it means getting your mom out, it’s worth it. I was always going to have to join up anyway. At least this way, we get something out of it.”

Raven frowns at her words. “What do you mean?”

“Lexa’s got it in her head that I have some sort of destiny to save the world,” she replies with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Although I guess, with whatever Mom did to me, she’s right. I’m a super-soldier now, whatever that means.”

Monty’s visions float back to the forefront of Raven’s mind, and she considers the confirmation of the fact that the serum boosts their abilities. Raven can only imagine how hard it must be for Clarke to adjust not only to being one of the last of her kind— and a super-Pusher to boot— but also that the fact that she has a mission of some sort because of it. It’s the Destiny with a capital D that’s probably the hardest pill to swallow. Raven would worry that it might all go to Clarke’s head, except Clarke doesn’t seem interested in using her powers; how else would it explain why she didn’t just Push everyone earlier?

“Hey, how come you didn’t Push Lexa into giving us what we need?” she asks, giving voice to her question.

Clarke shrugs. “To be honest, I kinda forgot. I’m still adjusting to the fact that I’m not a Watcher and that’s an option for me.” She pauses, then adds, “I’m not sure I’d really want to do it, either.”

“Why not?” Octavia asks in a curious tone.

“The truth is always a better bedrock to build relationships upon,” she recites with a sardonic, empty smile. Raven doesn’t recognize the quote, but given Clarke’s tone, she doesn’t think it’d do any good to ask.

“I don’t want to lie if I don’t have to. It doesn’t do any us any good in the long run, not if we’re ever going to be real allies. Look how hurt you were, and I only lied about my name,” she tells Octavia.

Clarke has a point. Still, it’s kinda funny in a twisted way.

“A Pusher who doesn’t want to Push people,” Raven says, shaking her head.

“I know, right? Some super soldier I turned out to be. Mom would be _so_ proud,” Clarke says with an empty laugh.

Octavia remains unconvinced. “So you really wouldn’t Push one of us?”

“Look, I’ll do it if I need to, especially if it’s to save a life. But I don’t ever want the people I care about to question their own thoughts about me. It’s no way to gain trust. You don’t do that your friends, and especially not your family.”

Clarke slips on her words, the harshness betraying where her thoughts lie. The bruised soreness in her voice gives away the hurt from her parents’ actions, and to be honest, Raven’s starting to feel it too.  All this talk about the future and the plans parents have for their children strikes a match inside her, that familiar burn of indignation flaring up again as her thoughts drift back to her mother. She doesn’t know if it’s worse now because of Clarke’s hurt too, but she feels it growing inside her stronger than before.

“You know, your dad probably had a good reason for Pushing you,” Octavia says, broaching the subject again. “He clearly didn’t want you to do it or put you in that position. Something must have forced his hand.”

Clarke scoffs. “Yeah. My mother. I just don’t understand is what they were trying to accomplish. What good does it do to have fake visions?”

 _Visions._ Something clicks in Raven’s head, the pieces sliding together. _Of course._

“Hundred bucks says that my mother was involved in whatever crap your parents did to you,” Raven says darkly.  “This has her bad parenting Watcher fingerprints all over it.”

“Do you think our moms talked about us like we’re talking about them now?” Octavia wonders out loud.

Raven tries to picture it but the image never appears. Her mother never had a charitable word to say about her. She can’t imagine her sitting next to other mothers who loved their children so well. The ache in her heart tugs hard at the idea of what it would have been like if her mother had actually cared.

“I can’t imagine how that conversation would have gone,” she says, congratulating herself from stopping her voice from cracking.

“Kinda makes you wonder what it was like for them,” Octavia continues. “Mom never said anything to me or Bell or gave us any hint what she was doing. It must have been hard for all of them, hiding all that. Especially if they lived in Alpha.”

Something in Raven snaps in two at Octavia’s words, and a bitter laugh escapes her lips before she can suppress it. She knows Octavia is talking about Clarke’s parents, trying to lessen the blow by finding some context for Clarke to cling onto, but she can’t help it. Her mom lived in Alpha too.

“Right. It must have difficult to make other people raise your kid while others die to preserve your cover,” she spits out.

Clarke and Octavia shoot her concerned looks.

“Raven…” Clarke begins.

“You know what I don’t get is _why_ ,” Raven says forcefully, a roiling anger cascading through her. It spreads from her shoulders down her back, her entire body clenching in response. “Why have a kid if you know your life is already in danger? Why even bother if you’re not even going to try?”

The more Raven thinks about it, the more thoughts she hates her mom for what she did. Monty’s parents died for her mother, and who knows how many else. It’s upsetting in a way that she’s can’t quite describe, but what hurts her the most is that with all that time her mother bought with other people’s lives, she didn’t spend any of it on one ounce of kindness towards Raven.

Instead, she shunted her off to strangers and ignored her. Raven spent years mired in self-doubt, teaching herself how to find her own value, raise her own voice against the one in her head. Her mother forced her to find a new family all on her own, and Raven _hates_ that she has a noble reason for her actions now.

“At least you have good memories of your mom, Clarke. Even if some aren’t real, even after what she did, you know she cared. Mine are just…insults and broken fragments of lucidity.”

The heat begins to build in the behind her eyes again, the sting of tears forming announcing themselves loud and clear this time. Her voice is too brittle to stop from breaking, but Raven can’t be bothered to hide it. She doesn’t _want_ to fight it anymore.

“All this time, I thought my mother hated me. That I was a disappointment because I wasn’t a Watcher like her. Turns out, she did it because I’m better off without her? To make me stronger because she knew she would die as some sort of martyr for the cause?”

The thought makes her so furious because it’s like she can’t be mad anymore. Her mother had a legitimate reason for her actions, and worse, she’s actually taken the credit for the hard-won independence that feeds Raven’s pride.

‘ _Why do you think I pushed her towards the Collins boy?’_

Even her relationship with Finn is tainted now. It’s one more addition to the list of things her mom has taken away from her.

She didn’t think there was anything to left to lose.

“GOD, I WANT TO HATE HER SO MUCH!” she screams, throwing her sketchbook to the ground.

Part of her doesn’t even know why she’s so upset and so hurt after all this time. She thought she was over this, that she had come to terms with the person her mother is—or was, now that she’s dead. One person shouldn’t have so much say over her, shouldn’t matter so much when Raven mattered so little to her, and yet she can’t let the anger boil and evaporate away.

“All my life, I wanted was for her to pick me first, put me ahead of the visions!” Raven gasps in ugly, broken sobs. “I wanted her to act like a mother, and it turns out all this time she was— but not the way I needed her to be.”

Octavia rubs her back, her hand moving in soothing circles Raven can barely feel. Clarke crawls over to the edge of balcony, picks up her sketchbook and places it gently into her lap. She sits down next to Raven, sliding under the blanket again and dropping her head onto Raven’s right shoulder. Octavia does the same, mirroring Clarke’s position on the left.

Sandwiched between them, Raven feels the heat of their bodies pressing into her sides. The comforting warmth is a sharp contrast to the cold emptiness she feels in her chest, and for a split second she feels safe. It feels like it used to, when Finn used to hold her in his arms, with his solid weight behind her, feeling like safety and home. Raven misses it, misses _him,_ and even with the reminder that she has people who love her literally at her side, the combination of the things she’s lost and the things she could have, all the love and hurt filling her heart— it’s all too much.

The floodgates open as she voices her hurt out loud, and she can’t stop the tears from spilling out. She cries into the rising morning, until she can’t anymore, until her tears are all spent. And even when she’s done and has no more left to give, the ache is still there, tugging in her chest. Her heart hasn’t finished pouring itself empty yet, and the weight like an anchor in her chest makes it hard to breathe.

Her head pounds, and her eyes sting from all the tears she’s wiped away. There’s a dryness in her throat that hurts when she tries to swallow the pain away.

“If I was always going to lose her, why couldn't I have something good to remember her by?” she rasps, ragged and hoarse. “She pushed me away, and I still don’t have her.”

In the growing light of day, the question lingers in air. The silence goes on so long, Raven doesn’t think either girl will answer, until finally Octavia breaks the silence.

“I didn’t have any friends until you and Monty, because my mom made sure no one knew I existed,” she mumbles, head still resting on Raven’s shoulder.

“My parents turned me into a weapon so I could save the future,” Clarke says bitterly.

“And all our parents lied to us,” Octavia adds.

“Yeah, but they love you. They did it for you,” Raven sniffs.

“They also did this to us,” Clarke replies. “I don't know how to forgive that.”

Raven holds both their hands and squeezes them once. Somewhere in the span it takes to tighten and loosen her fingers around theirs, she feels the last bit of ache in her heart release. Her life may reach Olympic levels of epic suck, but it’s a comforting thought that at least she isn’t alone.  

Together the three of them watch as the sun creeps up the skies, and pink and orange hues edge out the purples and blues. In the quiet of the morning, calmness settles in her heart. Raven feels her anger fade with the stars in the sky.

“Hey Raven,” Clarke says, breaking the silence again. “I'd choose you first.”

“Me too.” Octavia burrows closer into her side. “I’m glad you didn’t die, Clarke,” she adds after a beat.

Clarke chuckles. “Same here, Octavia. Same here.”

Silence wraps around them like a blanket, comforting and warm. A drowsy heaviness finally starts to weigh on Raven’s eyes. The tiredness seeping into her bones no longer stands alone, as the sleepy pull to go to bed begins to grow stronger.

“What about a rocket?” Octavia says suddenly, jarring her back awake.

“Huh?”

“For your bionic leg,” she clarifies. “What about adding a rocket instead of wings?”

Clarke turns to the sketchbook in Raven’s lap and examines the drawing on the page.

“Wouldn’t you need jets on both feet to stay balanced?” she observes.

“So build two,” Octavia shrugs.

Raven just laughs.

*~*~*

Lincoln growls in frustration.

For such a small space, one would think that finding Anya and getting her to talk to him would be an easy feat, but no. First, she avoided him by literally disappearing on him. When that wore off, she slipped away to the bathroom. By the time he found her again, she was already in Monty’s room, feigning sleep on the bed, next to the Commander. When morning broke, she slipped away again.

He was ready to call her out on her childish behavior— something he never thought he’d ever associate with her—until Lexa used Monty in a classic pick maneuver during breakfast. That’s when Lincoln spotted the pattern and realized Anya wasn’t dodging him at all; she’d been chasing after _Lexa_ the entire night.

Lincoln chides himself for not realizing it sooner. He should have known. He concentrates again, this time focusing on the Commander’s intent, his mind traveling the familiar path to hers.

* _FLASH*_

_Downstairs in the bar, Anya argues with the Commander._

_The clock on the wall reads 8:32am._

_The Commander returns to the apartment, leaving Anya alone in the darkened bar._

_*FLASH*_

Lincoln glances down at his watch.

8:29am.

As discreetly as he can, Lincoln slips out the front door unnoticed. He inches down the stairs step by step, wincing as the wood creaks under his feet. From the bottom of the stairwell, he can hear the hiss of Anya’s voice carry through the room.

“Lexa, this is madness.”

Lincoln sneaks a peek around the corner. With the boards still covering the windows, the darkened bar makes it hard to see, but eventually he spots their shadowed figures arguing in hushed tones. His eyes widen when he notices Anya pull the Commander by the arm in her iron grip.

“Get. Your. Hand. Off me.”  

There’s a pregnant pause. Lincoln hopes Anya is smart enough to let go, but he can never tell with her and the Commander. She and Gustus have always had more leeway with the Commander than Lincoln has ever been afforded. Even though he is her Watcher, Lincoln isn’t even allowed to call Lexa by her first name.

“You can’t possibly think this is a good idea to send Lincoln on a suicide mission,” Anya barrels on, releasing her fingers from the Commander’s arm. “And do you want to tell me what the hell that was earlier with Clarke? Since when do you take orders from other people?”

“This isn’t the time, Anya.”

“ _Make_ time.”

“I said not now. Not _here_.”

Lincoln freezes. The pointed way the Commander said ‘here’ indicates that there’s a reason she isn’t explaining herself, but he can’t tell if it’s because he’s been caught, or if it’s some other reason entirely. All he can recognize is the coded way they are talking, full of loaded looks he’s sure they’re exchanging as they speak.

“We’ll speak back in TonDC, with Indra and the others,” the Commander says, less of a statement and more a question of the message received.

“All right,” Anya relents, dropping the matter for now.

Lincoln hears movement, and hastily, he backs up a few steps. The Commander’s troubled face appears in the bottom of the stairwell, and he schools his face with an innocent look, hoping she’ll believe he’s only just started his descent down the stairs.

“Lincoln,” she says stiffly.

“Commander,” he greets, letting her pass.

Thankfully, she doesn’t linger. Lincoln peeks his head into the bar again and sees an angry Anya, pacing back and forth in the room. _This isn’t gonna be pretty,_ he notes wryly. _But then, since when has anything in their relationship ever been easy?_ He draws a deep breath to steel himself for the worst, then enters the bar.

Anya stops for a split second when she registers his presence, then moves lightning fast, making a beeline for the door. Lincoln cuts her off, blocking her path. They stare at each other for a protracted moment, and Lincoln counts off in his head before she starts off with the lecture he knows coming in three…two…one…

“You know, I didn’t save your life just for you to throw it away so you can impress your new girlfriend,” she snaps.

 _And here we go._ Lincoln rubs his forehead. “It isn’t like that, Anya.”

“Have you even thought about how I’m going to have to explain this to Indra? She was about to come rescue you herself, even with all the riots going on,” she rants. “Do you have any idea what you’re putting your family through by risking your life for someone you met _yesterday_? Did you even think about that?”

“Will you listen to me for a moment?” he asks, but his question falls on deaf ears.

“Of course you didn’t. Because you’re not thinking with your head. You’re thinking with your—“

“Anya! STOP!” he yells, grabbing both of her arms.

She wrestles away from him and punches him hard in shoulder. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about my parents.”

His words have their desired effect as Anya’s rage snuffs out, replaced by confusion. “What?”

“I need you tell me everything you know about Raven’s mother,” he presses on.

“No, you don’t get to do that. Explain how your parents are involved in all this.”

“Anya, please. It’s important. I need know about Mirai Reyes,” he begs. “Did she say anything about me or my parents that night that she rescued us?”

“Tell me why first.”

Lincoln closes his eyes, not wanting to see her face when he delivers the news. “I think my parents were working with her before they died.”

Anya yanks his elbow and drags him away from the stairwell leading up to the apartment full of people above them. “What the hell, Lincoln?! Why didn’t you say something earlier when the Commander asked?” she hisses, serious and low.

“Because I’m not sure!” Lincoln protests. “It’s a weak lead. Raven has this bracelet that she got from her mother. It has this symbol.”

“What symbol?

“The All-Seeing Eye.”

The rigidness in Anya’s body falls away in exasperation. “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you really believe in that urban legend bullshit.”

“It isn’t an urban legend!”

“Yes, it is! The Watchers’ Circle was made up by a bunch of new agey pacifists who want to believe that we’re all part of some greater master plan, and all the shit that we’ve gone through is for a reason.”

Lincoln shakes his head. “It’s real. It’s a secret order of Watchers who aid other Watchers. Every Watcher knows about it. If Ori and Amira were here, they’d say the same thing.”

Anya’s expression shifts at the mention of his mentors. “Were they a part of this group?”

“No.” Costia’s parents would have said so when he and Costia questioned them about it the first time.

“But you think Raven’s mother was?”

Lincoln shakes his head. “I don’t know. But I _do_ know that my parents were. I found references to it in their journals. Code phrases and names. Secret missions. It’s all there, along with the vision notes about the Commander. From what I can tell, there were at least six of members of the Circle left by the time the war ended, including my parents. They weren’t all in Polis. Some as far as the Ice Nation.”

Anya crosses her arms over her chest.  “You’re telling me Indra never knew her sister was part of a secret order?”

“I think she did know,” Lincoln says. “Or at least she suspected, because that’s what she told me about how they died.”

“What do you mean?”

Lincoln tamps down the reflex to bite his tongue. He never talks about his parents’ death. It’s a wound that has never healed.  But he needs answers now, so he forces himself to explain.

“Indra told me at service that my parents lost their lives trying to find a better path to peace for our people. That they died in service to that life mission. I thought at first that she was just trying to make me feel better, but then I found my parents’ journals.”

He pauses, turning to gauge her reaction. Anya’s hands remain on her hips, head cocked and eyebrows raised in skepticism, but there’s a hint of belief in her eyes that prompts him to continue.

“They keep referencing this Plan that they were working towards with the other Watchers in the Circle. Something big, a seismic shift that would end this war for good without all the bloodshed.”

He could never find enough to parse out what the Plan was. Just unconnected bits and pieces, not clear enough to See the whole picture, but enough to know that the sum of its parts were leading to something concrete. A real path to freedom that didn’t end in all-out war with Division.

“I think whatever they were doing the night they died has something to do with that mission.”

“Lincoln—“ Anya begins, her voice knowing and soft.

“ _No_ ,” he cuts her off. “I know what you’re going to say, but think about it. Nobody knows what my parents were doing out there in the middle of the night. There is no mission log or report. All we have is grainy footage of a traffic camera of them being shot down by Division agents.”

Anya looks at him with uncharacteristic sympathy in her eyes. Lincoln grits his teeth, because he knows she doesn’t believe him. He knows she thinks he’s grasping at straws. But he’s right. He can feel it in his bones.

“I know it’s hard to accept that we don’t know—“

“Watchers as powerful as my parents don’t just die!” he shouts, ignoring the look Anya shoots him. “They lived through the war. They escaped from concentration camps. _They predicted Lexa’s birth._ Watchers like that aren’t gunned down in the middle of a street surrounded by that many Division agents for no reason! They would have Seen it coming.”

“You’re right. Your parents _were_ powerful, but they weren’t invincible,” Anya says in a quiet voice. “Just because they could See the future doesn’t mean they saw everything coming.”

“But what if they did? What if their death is all part of some big Plan and they gave themselves up for the greater good?”

Anya’s mouth presses into a thin line as he charges on.

“I need to know what my parents died for. If Raven’s mom was one of the Circle, if their parents’ Resistance connection is the Watchers’ Circle? It’s possible they know what that Plan was. It’s possible their plan is the same Plan. And with Mirai Reyes dead, the only lead I has left is Octavia’s mother and Clarke’s parents,” he finishes.

She looks at him with that hard, evaluating stare, the same kind that she’d shoot him when they were younger and they’d disagree on how to deal with the bullies who picked on Lincoln growing up. He used to back down from that stare, submitting to whatever plan Anya came up with because she was older and smarter.

But they aren’t children anymore. He meets her gaze head on and waits.

“And what makes you so sure Raven’s mother on your parents’ side?” she demands.

Lincoln narrows his eyes in confusion. “She saved us. She saved me. She’s the one who told us what the vision of Clarke meant.”

He’s Seen for himself how Lexa and Clarke’s futures are intertwined. It’s clear to him how they both fit into a bigger plan.

“Then why did she lie?” she challenges, her voice hard and unforgiving.

He pulls back in surprise. “What?”

“Why didn’t she just tell you who she was when you met her? Why didn’t she tell you she was friends with your parents? Why didn’t she identify herself in the Mountain? Or, better question— why didn’t she tell us about the secret Resistance fighters in the Mountain and have them help us? Why did she let Ori and Amira die? Why did she make me believe that she had died trying to save us?”

The rapid fire questions send Lincoln’s mind spinning, too fast for him to process. “She did what?”

“That _Watcher_ was a manipulative bitch,” Anya spits out. “She might have saved us from the guards, but she is a _liar._ When I tried to get her to come with me, she said that she needed to stay behind and buy us more time to escape. I didn’t want to leave her behind, but she told me her death would be the only way to get you out. She fed me that line about _victory_ and _sacrifice_ ,” she says bitterly.

“And you believed her.”

Anya’s voice drops, exhaling a hollow sound, more breath than empty laughter.

“Yes, I did. I picked you up and ran. I heard gunfire behind us a few minutes later and then nothing. They didn’t follow us. I hid you and went back to see what happened, just in time to her body being dragged back into the tunnels and then shot with a gun.”

“Then how—“

“Icers. Or maybe it was a real bullet, if Clarke’s mother really is a Stitch. Something to make it look like she was fighting us instead of Division. If I had known at the time that she had other conspirators with her, I would have suspected more. Instead, she made me think she sacrificed herself.”

She stares at him for a beat while he digests this information before going on. “She said she was helping us because Watchers help other Watchers. But now that I know who she was, _what_ she was really protecting by saving you…”

Lincoln swallows back the lump in his throat at the words unsaid. For a brief moment, he holds her gaze, wondering if Anya blames him for Costia’s death too.

“You don’t even know if this connection is real,“ she shifts gears, chipping away at his resolve. “You said it yourself: you’re banking everything on a _bracelet_ that isn’t even Raven’s. And even if Reyes did work with your parents, you have no idea if she betrayed them in the end, and that’s why they died. Have you really thought about who it is we’re talking about here? Who these people are?”

Lincoln frowns, recalling the betrayed looks on Clarke and Monty’s faces and Raven’s cold response to the news of her mother’s death.

“These are the kind of people who’d sell out the lives of _our people_ to save their own skin. Who’d lie to their children for their entire lives. Who’d turn their own child into a super-soldier. We’re all just pawns to them. Do you really think people like your parents would associate with them?”

He wants to say no, but part of him hesitates to paint his parents – or any of them— with such broad strokes. The world isn’t as black and white as Anya wishes it to be, especially for Watchers who can See the big picture. Sometimes the right thing to do seems wrong in the moment, until one takes a step back and  sees it in the larger context. Anya just doesn’t understand that. She can’t; her scope of view is too narrow, too focused on the present.

As if proving his point, she charges on in her argument. “Meanwhile, there is a real war out there that’s about to break out. This city is a powder keg, and our people need you to fight at our side. The Commander needs you. _Indra and I_ need you.”

The admission takes him aback, because Anya never asks for his help outright.

He opens his mouth to speak, but the slam of a door sounds from upstairs. The loud clomping of boots coming down the steps cuts him off. Lexa and Nyko appear in the stairwell entrance, the Commander’s shrewd eyes zeroing in on him and Anya immediately as she sweeps into the room. 

“Are you ready?” she directs her question to Anya.

Anya gives a curt nod, gathering her things. Lexa stalks past Lincoln without acknowledging his presence and makes her way to the exit. Nyko waves a short goodbye, unable to do much more as he tries to keep up with the brisk pace of the Commander.

The last one to the door, Anya shoots one last warning look at Lincoln, leaving him with a parting shot.

“Think about what I said and consider who you’re putting your life on the line for. Ask yourself who it is you’re trying to save and if they’re really worth it.“

Lincoln folds his arms across his chest, still convinced that he’s doing the right thing. Anya shakes her head in disappointment and pushes the door open with more force than necessary, disappearing into the sunlight.


End file.
